Like many of you, my ancestors were immigrants. Mine were Eastern European, some from villages now in Ukraine. Growing up, I heard stories of relatives fleeing the Cossacks, the pogroms, and basically getting out while the getting was good, all for the promise of a better life. Some didn’t make it—they died in gas chambers and work camps. Some didn’t survive the hardships of their new worlds. The ones who thrived were tough, worked hard…yes, some were bitter, but they all had hope. This hope, despite everything, is universal, yet very personal, which is why I’m so drawn to these refugee and immigrant stories from all over the world.
My favorite stories crook a finger and draw me deep into the characters and their worlds. The world of refugees from the Syrian civil war is filled with horror, grief, and pain, as you might expect, but this book…this book is beautiful, and it’s among the best novels I’ve read. A beekeeper and his wife – a blind artist – flee Aleppo for a chance of survival and the ever-dwindling hope of a new life in the UK. Threads from past and present weave seamlessly around each other like a bee from flower to hive to flower. I ached for these characters, but I also felt so present it was like walking through the fields of lavender and tasting the honey. My stepfather kept bees, so I also enjoyed that connection.
Shortlisted for Audiobook of the Year - The British Book Awards 2020
A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB CHOICE 2019
Narrated by Art Malik, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a moving, powerful, compassionate and beautifully written testament to the triumph of the human spirit. Told with deceptive simplicity, it is the kind of book that reminds us of the power of storytelling.
In the midst of war, he found love In the midst of darkness, he found courage In the midst of tragedy, he found hope
Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life,…
An American author wrote an autobiographical novel about the journey of a refugee from the Sudanese civil war? Skeptical red flags going up all over the place. But the story is based on actual refugee Valentino Achak Deng (he and Dave Eggers are friends), and the proceeds go to a foundation birthed in Deng’s name. Which Deng now uses to fund schools in his native South Sudan. But then I read it. And it’s good. Like, really, really good. Heartbreaking yet hopeful, and if I forgot about Eggers, I would completely believe that Deng is sitting right in front of me telling his story over coffee.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of other children —the so-called Lost Boys—was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom.
When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges. Moving, suspenseful, and unexpectedly funny, What Is the What is an astonishing novel that…
Yes, it won a Pulitzer. Yes, it’s been around a while (published in 2002). The world is (finally, hopefully) catching up to the fact that non-binary people are part of it. But in its time, Middlesex was considered astonishing—for its main character (identified as intersex) and the family secrets he reveals. This was and still is one of my favorite stories. The writing is flat-out stellar, for one. I ached with empathy and love for Calliope, later known as Cal, but the harrowing immigration tale of his grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona, seeking escape to America from their tiny village in Greece while the country is being besieged by the Turkish army, pulled me in hard. So, technically it is somebody’s grandparents’ immigration story, but it’s really, really good.
'I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974.'
So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and her truly unique family secret, born on the slopes of Mount Olympus and passed on through three generations.
Growing up in 70s Michigan, Calliope's special inheritance will turn her into Cal, the narrator of this intersex, inter-generational epic of immigrant life in 20th century America.
Middlesex won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
I knew nothing about this book’s author but was immediately hooked by the engaging voice of the young protagonist. I would have followed her anywhere. She led me out of Nigeria, on the run from warlords who burned her village, to a refugee detention center in the UK. Then on the loose, an undocumented young Nigerian woman searching for the one man in London who could vouch for her. What she does find is the man’s widow. And I found a story I couldn’t stop reading. Only later did I learn that the author is a man. And that he’d written the book to shine a light on the cruelty done to Nigerians in the name of oil rights, and the mistreatment of refugees in UK detention centers. Well done, Chris.
Millions of people have read, discussed, debated, cried, and cheered with Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee girl whose violent and courageous journey puts a stunning face on the worldwide refugee crisis.
“Little Bee will blow you away.” —The Washington Post
The lives of a sixteen-year-old Nigerian orphan and a well-off British woman collide in this page-turning #1 New York Times bestseller, book club favorite, and “affecting story of human triumph” (The New York Times Book Review) from Chris Cleave, author of Gold and Everyone Brave Is Forgiven.
We don’t want to tell you too much about this book. It is…
I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Richard Crasta when he lived in New York, and his novel was a welcome surprise at a time when I needed it. Not all fictional immigrant journeys about hope are harrowing life-and-death tales. Some are funny, like Crasta’s coming-of-age American-dream novel. It’s been called the Indian Portnoy’s Complaint. I get that some might have a problem with that. But I felt for Vijay Prabhu, our young protagonist. He yearns to be a writer and sleep with American women—a dream that American TV and movies have promised him, a dream that’s taboo in his native Mangalore and in his Catholic family, where writing is not an acceptable profession for a man and sex is definitely not discussed. Witty and honest and devastatingly human.
A comic coming-of-age novel, of an Indian boy with an American Dream, "The Revised Kama Sutra" is also an honest and uninhibited account of how difficult it was for many an Indian male, in the Seventies (and to a smaller extent, even today), to lose his virginity. Inflamed by Western movies and erotic novels and how-to books on seducing women, the protagonist, Vijay Prabhu, dreams of going to America to become a writer and fulfill his sexual fantiasies. Described as an insight into the Indian male mind, this novel has been published in multiple editions and was praised by Kurt…
It’s 1932. Eli, the son in Abramowitz & Son Kosher Delicatessen in Brooklyn, dreams of becoming a Hollywood screenwriter. Evelyn, the daughter of a mobster and his Polish mail-order bride, carries the weight of family traditions but longs for escape and a life where she can do some good in the world. But a chance meeting could make trouble for everyone, and could put both their lives in danger. Boychik is a story about hope, love, and finding the courage to chase your dreams even when they run counter to family obligations.
Willem and Jurriaan have a miserable childhood thanks to their cruel, controlling mother—Louisa Veldkamp, a world-renowned pianist. Dad turns a blind eye. One day, Louisa vanishes without a trace during a family vacation.
Adoptee Anneliese Bakker survives a toxic childhood and leaves home, vowing never to return. While searching for her biological mother, she meets the adult Willem, and they fall in love. Pregnant and engaged, she moves into the family mansion, wanting nothing more than to create a loving family for her child. But the Veldkamps are cold and distant. And why is Louisa a taboo subject?
An expectant mother gets more than she bargained for when she marries into a seemingly perfect family in this gripping debut novel–a must read for fans of A. J. Finn and B. A. Paris.
After surviving a nightmarish childhood, Anneliese Bakker is on the mend and searching for her birth mother. But when she meets Willem, she falls madly in love and finally finds a safe place to land. Engaged and expecting her first child, she moves into the Veldkamp mansion on a stately, tree-lined avenue in Amsterdam. And yet, nothing about Willem’s family is as it seems. Instead of…
