Searching for Zion

By Emily Raboteau,

Book cover of Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora

Book description

A decade in the making, Emily Raboteau’s Searching for Zion takes readers around the world on an unexpected adventure of faith. Both one woman’s quest for a place to call “home” and an investigation into a people’s search for the Promised Land, this landmark work of creative nonfiction is a…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Searching for Zion as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

A memoir by a young biracial woman who travels to Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia, Ghana, and the U.S. South, searching for her own identity. 

The pleasure in the memoir comes from her journey. She is a good storyteller and takes us inside her often uncomfortable encounters with folks she has romanticized as being the “real” Black folks. Raboteau discovers, after searching for ten years all over the world, that rather like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, her true home lies within. 

One of the things I loved about the book was her well-told conversations and visits with people in countries…

If you love Searching for Zion...

Ad

Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest By Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Want books like Searching for Zion?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Searching for Zion.

Browse books like Searching for Zion

Book cover of The Vanishing Half
Book cover of The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
Book cover of One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life - A Story of Race and Family Secrets

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,584

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 If you like Searching for Zion, you might also like...

Book cover of The Truth About Unringing Phones

The Truth About Unringing Phones By Lara Lillibridge,

When Lara was four years old, her father moved from Rochester, New York, to Anchorage, Alaska, a distance of over 4,000 miles. She spent her childhood chasing after him, flying a quarter of the way around the world to tug at the hem of his jacket.

Now that he is…

Book cover of The Pianist's Only Daughter: A Memoir

The Pianist's Only Daughter By Kathryn Betts Adams,

The Pianist's Only Daughter is a frank, humorous, and heartbreaking exploration of aging in an aging expert's own family.

Social worker and gerontologist Kathryn Betts Adams spent decades negotiating evolving family dynamics with her colorful and talented parents: her mother, an English scholar and poet, and her father, a pianist…

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Africa, human migration, and African diaspora?

Africa 265 books
Human Migration 20 books
African Diaspora 24 books