The barrier

Burdened with noble goals, five French young men set out on a journey to deliver humanitarian aid to the Kakanj area in Bosnia, during the civil war, but what started as a dangerous humanitarian mission on a rugged road through snow and cold took a different course that made all their beliefs questionable and doubtful. What is really in the boxes? Where will they go? And what awaits them on the other side? In addition to having to cross real checkpoints, they will also face more difficult ideological barriers. What do the victims really need: survival or victory? And what should be saved: the animal instinct for survival that only seeks food and shelter or the sense of human dignity that requires means of resistance? In an exciting plot, and with a well-paced rhythm, the French writer Jean-Christophe Ruffin raises profound questions about humanitarian work: its validity, motives, and how one can truly be human to the furthest extent; these are questions that the characters in the novel constantly ask themselves and each other throughout a perilous journey that may change their beliefs, and perhaps their destinies forever.