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Audiobooks Narrated by Dina Nayeri
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What is it like to be a refugee? It is a question many of us do not give much thought to, and yet there are more than twenty-five million refugees in the world. 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. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. In this book, a couple falls in love over the phone, women gather to prepare 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. Nayeri confronts notions like “the swarm,” and, on the other hand, “good” immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western governments privilege certain dangers over others. With surprising and provocative questions, The Ungrateful Refugee challenges us to rethink how we talk about the refugee crisis.
[Nayeri's] exploration of the exile's predicament is tender and urgent - New Yorker
What is it like to be a refugee? It is a question few in the West give much thought, and yet to be a refugee - or an immigrant - is to grapple with your place in the world, attempting to reconcile the life you have known with the unfamiliar. With this comes the weight of the expectations (and fears and resentment) of those born in the host country; foremost is the burden of gratitude: to be forever thankful for the space you have been allowed.
Nayeri weaves together the story of her own refugee journey - as a child forced to flee Iran, eventually finding asylum in America - with the stories of others making their own journeys today. She sets out the stages of the refugee experience, and gives voice to those in today's refugee camps, or who are trying to settle in a new country, and for many of whom the search for home can be a forever state.
The Ungrateful Refugee offers a new, complete narrative of resettlement, and recalibrates 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.
