A timely, provocative and personal examination of the refugee experience.
Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother, and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned-refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. Now, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with those of other asylum seekers in recent years. In these pages, women gather to prepare the noodles that remind them of home, a closeted queer man tries to make his case truthfully as he seeks asylum and a translator attempts to help new arrivals present their stories to officials.
Surprising and provocative,
The Ungrateful Refugee offers a new, complete narrative of resettlement, and re-calibrates the conversation around the refugee experience. But above all here are the real human stories of what it is like to be forced to flee your home, to journey in hope of a better, safer life, and, for the lucky few, the struggle to start afresh in a new culture.
About the Author
Dina Nayeri was born in Iran during the revolution and arrived in America when she was ten years old. She is the winner of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and the UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize. The author of two novels -
Refuge and
A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea - and contributor to
The Displaced, her work has been published in over twenty countries. Her stories and essays have been published in
The O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Short Stories, the
New York Times, Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Granta and many other publications. She lives in London.
@DinaNayeri |
dinanayeri.com Industry Reviews
"A thoughtful investigation . . . This wide-ranging, reasoned book is no polemic: its observations are self-reflective, contemplative and significant"
Financial Times
"Nayeri combines her own experience with those of refugees she meets as an adult, telling their stories with tenderness and reverence"
New York Times
"A remarkable book, whose evocative stories are deftly woven into a powerful tapestry, with lessons for us all. Anybody interested in the refugee experience will learn from Dina Nayeri's book. As for policymakers: The Ungrateful Refugee should be compulsory reading if they are to regain or retain a sense of humanity"
Steve Crawshaw, Policy Director, Freedom from Torture, former London Director of Human Rights Watch
