The Illegal

Canadian author Lawrence Hill published The Illegal in 2015. This fast-paced fictional political thriller, which focuses on a young undocumented marathon runner, uses multiple perspectives and irony to question what it really means to be a citizen, exploring themes of Race, Privilege, and Power, Legality Versus Justice, and The Power of Marginalized Voices. 

Hill is a noted contributor to the fiction and nonfiction genres, particularly for his exploration of issues related to race. The Illegal furthers this work through the thriller and satire genres. An award-winning author, Hill has received the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and the Rogers Writer’s Trust Fiction Prize, in addition to several other accolades.

Content Warning: Both the novel and this guide contain discussion of slavery, imperialism, anti-immigrant bias, human trafficking, racism (including outdated racial terminology, which this guide reproduces only in quoted material), anti-gay bias (including slurs, which this guide reproduces only in quoted material), and suicide.

Plot Summary

The Illegal is set in a fictional country called Freedom State. The main character, Keita Ali, runs marathons and other races to try to save his sister’s life and his own. Their home country, Zantoroland, was taken over by a cruel dictator. Keita’s mother and father have already died, and the government is holding his sister for ransom. Keita’s only hope to secure her release is to win enough races to earn her ransom in prize money. However, the big money races are in Freedom State, where Keita is considered an “illegal.” He joins up with a corrupt sports agent named Anton Hamm to obtain passage to Freedom State. Once there, he sneaks away from Hamm and goes into hiding, entering races under the name Roger Bannister.

In Freedom State, Keita gains notoriety for his running. He becomes the central character around which the others orbit. Keita interacts with members of the Freedom State government, as well as inhabitants of the ghettoized AfricTown. AfricTown and Zantoroland are not so different from each other, and their shared fictional history becomes significant to the plot. In Hill’s imagining, Freedom State relied on slavery for centuries to build its wealth and status as the third-richest nation in the world. When Freedom State abolished slavery, it deported formerly enslaved individuals and their offspring to Zantoroland. It used skin color to determine who could remain in Freedom State as citizens. However, because Zantoroland is corrupt and dangerous, those deported continue to return to Freedom State, living in open hiding in AfricTown. 

Keita successfully remains in hiding while training for the upcoming Buttersby Marathon. He is helped along the way by the “Queen of AfricTown,” Lula Distefano, and housed by Ivernia Beech, an elderly white woman who is ashamed of her country’s treatment of Black people. Keita also befriends a young Black aspiring documentarian, a street-smart journalist, and a Black female police officer. All of these people support and protect him from the wrath of his angry sports agent and the Freedom State government. Viola, the journalist, travels to Zantoroland to research the suspicious deaths of Keita’s father and a sex worker named Yvette Peters. While there, Viola is forcefully taken from her hotel room and placed in jail with Keita’s sister, on the charge of spying.

Keita earns enough prize money to meet his sister’s ransom demand. With Ivernia’s help, he sends the money to Zantoroland. John, the documentarian, has cleverly taped highly sensitive meetings as well as misdeeds by those with high power in the prime minister’s office, so he bribes his way into paperwork that allows Keita to remain safely in Freedom State. Keita’s sister and Viola are released and allowed to come to Freedom State. Once home, Viola and John uncover a powerful secret: Freedom State and Zantoroland have a corrupt deal in which they sell information to each other to capture, detain, and often kill refugees attempting to cross the border in fishing boats. Similarly, those residing in AfricTown without authorization are spied on and “returned” to Zantoroland even though they were born in Freedom State. At the novel’s end, the parties benefiting from these transactions are exposed as the prime minister of Zantoroland, the prime minister of Freedom State, and Lula DiStefano. The Freedom State prime minister and his henchmen are sent to prison. After Viola writes an exposé on Lula, Lula escapes and is never heard from again, apparently evading punishment for her years of human trafficking.