Refugee Memoir

Doaa Al Zamel was once an average Syrian girl growing up in a crowded house in a bustling city near the Jordanian border. But in 2011 her life was upended. Inspired by the events of the Arab Spring, Syrians began to stand up against their own oppressive regime. When the army was sent to take control of Doaa's hometown, strict curfews, power outages, water shortages, air raids, and violence disrupted everyday life.

In 2006, after his father was killed, Gulwali Passarlay was caught between the Taliban, who wanted to recruit him, and the Americans, who wanted to use him. To protect her son, Gulwali's mother sent him away. The search for safety would lead the 12-year-old across eight countries, from the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan through Iran and Europe to Britain. Over the course of 12 harrowing months, Gulwali endured imprisonment, hunger, cruelty, brutality, loneliness, and terror - and nearly drowned crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

A rich boy turned refugee tells the story of coming full circle to succeed in ways beyond his imagination. Born to a family that had recently fled British India during the partition of India and Pakistan, Ram's early life in Mombasa seemed charmed with wealth and success. However, losing all of this overnight through a second deportation, this time from Kenya to the UK, he saw the course of his life change beyond recognition.

An evocative blend of immersion journalism and memoir, How to Make a Life shares the immigration story of a Tibetan refugee family who crossed real and cultural bridges to make a life in Madison, Wisconsin, with the assistance of the Midwestern woman they befriended. From tales of escaping Tibet over the Himalayas to striking a balance between old traditions with new to bridging divides one friendly gesture at a time, listeners will expand their understanding of family, culture, and belonging.

Before the Soviet invasion of 1980, Enjeela Ahmadi remembers her home - Kabul, Afghanistan - as peaceful, prosperous, and filled with people from all walks of life. But after her mother, unsettled by growing political unrest, leaves for medical treatment in India, the civil war intensifies, changing young Enjeela’s life forever. Amid the rumble of invading Soviet tanks, Enjeela and her family are thrust into chaos and fear when it becomes clear that her mother will not be coming home.

Annahita Parsan was born into a Muslim family in Iran and grew up with the simple hope of one day finding a good husband, having children, and doing some good in the world. Married and a mother before she turned 18, Annahita found herself unexpectedly widowed and trapped for years in an abusive second marriage that she later fled - discovering instead a God who might love her. Stranger No More is the remarkable true story of Annahita's path from oppression to the life-changing hope of Jesus.

The astonishing journey of a bright, utterly displaced boy, from the short-lived African nation of Biafra, to Jamaica, to the harshest streets of Los Angeles - a searing memoir that adds fascinating depth to the coming-to-America story.

Born in Czechoslovakia, Mark Slouka's parents survived the Nazis only to be forced to then escape the Communist purges after the war. Smuggled out of their own country, the newlyweds joined a tide of refugees moving from Innsbruck to Sydney to New York, dragging with them a history of blood and betrayal that their son would be born into.

"I saw many killed. I almost starved. But I escaped to refugee camps in Thailand and eventually made it to the U.S." Thus begins Leth Oun's poignant and vivid memoir. A survivor of the Cambodian Killing Fields—having spent a torturous three years, eight months, and ten days imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge—Oun thrived in America, learning English, becoming a citizen, and working as an officer in the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division. In A Refugee's American Dream, Oun shares hard memories of Cambodia, where his father was executed, and his family enslaved in labor camps.

One day when Mondiant Dogon was only three years old, his father’s lifelong friend, a Hutu man, came to their home with a machete in his hand and warned the family they were to be killed within hours. Dogon’s family fled into the forest, initiating a long, dangerous journey into Rwanda. They made their way to the first of several UN tent cities in which they would spend decades. But their search for a safe haven had just begun. Rarely do refugees get to tell their own stories. Through his writing, Dogon took control of his own narrative and spoke up for forever refugees everywhere.

In 1987, Nathaniel Nyok, tormented by thoughts of missing parents and siblings, fled a bloody scene and a burning village in Sudan. At eight, he had just capitulated to an orphan-like life with a new title, A Lost Boy of Sudan, living in a refugee camp for 14 years. As he battled the loss of home and family, he chose education over revenge as the road to freedom, a road that eventually brought him to America, land of freedom and rules, welcomes and prejudices. This story portrays his transition to American culture as a time of both confusion and hope.

The perfect gift book, featuring the writing of Meryl Streep, Bill Bailey, Emilia Clarke, Olivia Colman, Caitlin Moran, Richard Ayoade, Emily Watson and others, to coincide with the upcoming movie Last Christmas, starring Emma Thompson, Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding. When you think back to Christmases past, what (if anything) made it magical? This is a beautiful, funny and soulful collection of personal essays about the meaning of Christmas, written by a unique plethora of voices from the boulevards of Hollywood to the soup kitchens of Covent Garden.

A Syria-born dancer offers his deeply personal story of war, statelessness, and the pursuit of the art of dance in this inspirational memoir.

This is the true story of a male couple's quest for a life in the West...one is American, the other is Iraqi. The American learns about gays in the Middle East and human trafficking as he helps his partner escape from Turkey by raft, sneak their way into Athens, and seek asylum in Amsterdam.

It is early 20th-century Greece. Theodosia, a teenage girl and her younger sister, lose their parents in Constantinople and are thrown into a massive population exchange between Greece and Turkey. They arrive at a refugee camp in Northern Greece, where their choice is to perish or to use the resources at hand in order to survive. Despite all the difficulties they encounter, the sisters decide not to give up, and fight for a better life. Theodosia's story carries on throughout a century and is peppered with horrific events, likable characters, and a great love story.

At the peak of his powers, and with the world at his feet after a breakout season in the Australian Football League (AFL), the North Melbourne Kangaroos' Majak Daw was on the verge of finally becoming one of the AFL's bona fide superstars - but it all came crashing down. After secretly battling years of mental health issues, the Sudanese-born phenomenon leapt off the Bolte Bridge in Melbourne in a shock attempt to end his life.

Alla fine degli anni ottanta, quando la sua famiglia decise di fuggire dall'Iran in guerra, Dina Nayeri era una bambina. Il rumore delle bombe, le sirene e le corse per nascondersi nel seminterrato, la poca luce filtrata dalle finestre serrate erano tutte cose normali. Negli anni a venire, sui letti a castello delle case per i rifugiati di Londra, di Dubai, di Roma, poi dell'Oklahoma, Dina conobbe per la prima volta il silenzio del sonno tranquillo e ininterrotto: quella fu la sua prima idea di cosa fosse la pace.

Abdul is just seven years old when his parents are killed before his eyes. As a brutal war sweeps Sudan, Abdul and his three-year-old brother are forced to flee. Their gruelling journey across the Sahara to a refugee camp in Chad is fraught with danger, and every day is a struggle against hunger and disease. Until one day Abdul is offered a chance to escape. A chance that could save him, but will force him to make the most heartbreaking decision of his life. Abdul's death-defying flight leaves deep scars.

Into the maelstrom of unprecedented contemporary debates about immigrants in the United States, this perfectly timed book gives us a portrait of what the new immigrant experience in America is really like. Written as a "guide" for the newly arrived, and providing "practical information and advice", Roya Hakakian, an immigrant herself, reveals what those who settle here love about the country, what they miss about their homes, the cruelty of some Americans, and the unceasing generosity of others.

When Catharine H. Murray travels to a small town on the banks of the Mekong River to work at a refugee camp, she falls in love and marries a local man with whom she has three sons. When their middle son is diagnosed with cancer at age five, their pursuit of a cure takes them from Thailand to Seattle, before they eventually return to Thailand, settling on a remote mountaintop. Full of honesty and grace, Now You See the Sky allows the listener to witness the fathomless loss of a beloved child and learn how tragedy can transform us, expand our vision, and make us more fully alive.