Get 3 months for $0.99 a month

LIMITED TIME OFFER
My Parents / This Does Not Belong to You cover art

My Parents / This Does Not Belong to You

 Preview
Get this deal Try for $0.00
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.
Amazon Prime member exclusive: get any 2 titles with your free trial. Terms apply.
Just $0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 audiobook per month of your choice from our unparalleled catalog.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

My Parents / This Does Not Belong to You

Written by: Aleksandar Hemon
Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur
Get this deal Try for $0.00

$14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offers ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $28.55

Buy Now for $28.55

About this listen

An intimate portrait of immigration, family, and the heartbreaking (and sometimes hilarious) things that happen along the way from the author Colum McCann calls "the greatest writer of our generation."

In My Parents, Aleksandar Hemon tells the story of his parents' immigration from Bosnia to Canada - of the lives that were upended in the Siege of Sarajevo and the new lives his parents were forced to build. As ever with his work, Hemon portrays both the perfect, intimate details (his mother's lonely upbringing, his father's fanatical beekeeping), and a sweeping, heartbreaking history of his native country, from the rule of Otto von Bismarck to the massacres that shocked the world. It is a story full of many Hemons, of course - his parents, sister, uncles, cousins - and also of German occupying forces, Yugoslav communist revolutionary partisans, royalist Serb collaborators, and a few befuddled Canadians.

That would be enough to astound listeners, and yet Hemon also shares an untampered series of beautifully distilled memories and observations titled This Does Not Belong to You, the perfect complement to a major work from a major writer who is about to become unignorable.

©2019 Aleksandar Hemon (P)2019 Penguin Random House Canada Art & Literature Authors Witty Funny

What the critics say

“An incisive combination of literature that addresses the function of literature and memories that explore the meaning of memory.” (Kirkus, starred review)

“Sometimes lively and sensual, sometimes bleakly ruminative, Hemon’s recollections unite his dazzling prose style with a captivating personal narrative.” (Publishers Weekly)
All stars
Most relevant
I really struggled to finish this because it really felt like the author, based on his previous success, was given an opportunity to write about himself but didn't know how to do it. The first part, My Family is a bit interesting when focusing on his parents adapting to life in Canada as refugees but the second part, This does not belong to you, is just a series of uninteresting and direction-less anecdotes that only show that the author had an average childhood. Worst of it all is that the narrator, who is the opposite of Eastern European, does a poor job at most of the Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian words that it takes you out of what I am assuming the author is trying to convey. Why they didn't hire a Jugovic, or at the very least someone from Eastern Europe, to read the book is frustrating.
Just because someone is well-known does not mean they have enough of an interesting life to share it with others.

Dull and Boring

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.