[Review of: M. Belloni (2019) The Big Gamble. The Migration of Eritreans to Europe]

This is an exceptionally good ethnographic study, that follows Eritrean migrants on the way from Eritrea to Ethiopia to Sudan to Italy. Belloni’s lively and empathic descriptions provide a deep understanding of the young men and women to whom she became close, both before they decide to start their journey and on the different points of their journey. She fascinatingly shows the reasoning, the motives and the choices that they take, in all the different contexts. The book is not only a joy to read but has also a very original research design but is a must-read for those who are study migration motivations. Not for nothing, the first version of this study has won the prestigious IMISCOE PhD-thesis award.