-
American Refuge
- True Stories of the Refugee Experience
- Narrated by: Diya Abdo
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $14.04
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
“A moving and timely book that strips away misleading politics to reveal the complexities of real human lives."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
A provocative, conversation-sparking exploration of refugee experiences told in their own words, for fans of Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s The Undocumented Americans and Viet Thanh Nguyen
Forced to leave their homes, they came to America...
In this intimate and eye-opening book, Diya Abdo—daughter of refugees, U.S. immigrant, English professor, and activist—shares the stories of seven refugees. Coming from around the world, they’re welcomed by Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR), an organization Diya founded to leverage existing resources at colleges to provide temporary shelter to refugee families.
Bookended by Diya’s powerful essay "Radical Hospitality" and the inspiring coda “Names and Numbers,” each chapter weaves the individual stories into a powerful journey along a common theme:
• Life Before (“The Body Leaves its Soul Behind”)
• The Moment of Rupture (“Proof and Persecution”)
• The Journey (“Right Next Door”)
• Arrival/Resettlement (“Back to the Margins”)
• A Few Years Later (“From Camp to Campus”)
The lives explored in American Refuge include the artist who, before he created the illustration on the cover of this book, narrowly escaped two assassination attempts in Iraq and now works at Tyson cutting chicken.
We learn that these refugees from Burma, Burundi, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and Uganda lived in homes they loved, left against their will, moved to countries without access or rights, and were among the 1% of the "lucky" few to resettle after a long wait, almost certain never to return to the homes they never wanted to leave. We learn that anybody, at any time, can become a refugee.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Solito
- A Memoir
- By: Javier Zamora
- Narrated by: Javier Zamora
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Javier Zamora’s adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a “coyote” hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks.
-
-
MASTERPIECE of Poetic Prose, Outstanding Narration
- By Mary Burnight on 01-12-23
By: Javier Zamora
-
The Wealth of Refugees
- How Displaced People Can Build Economies
- By: Alexander Betts
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 19 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in an age of displacement. Refugee numbers are increasing due to a proliferation of fragile states. And yet, rising populist nationalism has undermined the political willingness of rich countries to accept migrants and asylum seekers. Given these contradictory trends, how can we create sustainable refugee policies that enable displaced people to live in safety and dignity, while operating at scale? The Wealth of Refugees draws upon a decade of original qualitative and quantitative research to offer practical solutions.
-
-
Excellent and important work
- By Ben on 01-19-23
By: Alexander Betts
-
We Are Displaced
- My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World
- By: Malala Yousafzai
- Narrated by: Malala Yousafzai - prologue, Neela Vaswani, Deepti Gupta
- Length: 4 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobel Peace Prize winner and New York Times best-selling author Malala Yousafzai introduces some of the people behind the statistics and news stories we read or hear every day about the millions of people displaced worldwide.
-
-
Malala is such a force for good
- By Mary Beth on 01-11-19
By: Malala Yousafzai
-
I Never Thought of It That Way
- How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times
- By: Mónica Guzmán
- Narrated by: Mónica Guzmán
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this timely, personal guide, Mónica, the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, takes you to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt - broken conversations among confounded people. She shows you how to overcome the fear and certainty that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is different from or even opposed to yours.
-
-
Good recommendations, bad justification
- By Jesse Hodges on 01-08-23
By: Mónica Guzmán
-
City of Refugees
- The Story of Three Newcomers Who Breathed Life into a Dying American Town
- By: Susan Hartman
- Narrated by: Samara Naeymi
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
War, persecution, natural disasters, and climate change continue to drive millions around the world from their homes. In this “tender, intimate, and important book—a carefully reported rebuttal to the xenophobic narratives that define so much of modern American politics” (Sarah Stillman, staff writer, The New Yorker), journalist Susan Hartman follows 3 refugees over 8 years and tells the story of how they built new lives in the old manufacturing town of Utica, New York.
-
-
Vivid portrait of three refugee families
- By "dcreader54" on 12-20-22
By: Susan Hartman
-
The Displaced
- Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen - editor
- Narrated by: Greta Jung, Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In January 2017, Donald Trump signed an executive order stopping entry to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries and dramatically cutting the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States each year. The American people spoke up, with protests, marches, donations, and lawsuits that quickly overturned the order. But the refugee caps remained. In The Displaced, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, himself a refugee, brings together a host of prominent refugee writers to explore and illuminate the refugee experience.
-
Solito
- A Memoir
- By: Javier Zamora
- Narrated by: Javier Zamora
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Javier Zamora’s adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a “coyote” hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks.
-
-
MASTERPIECE of Poetic Prose, Outstanding Narration
- By Mary Burnight on 01-12-23
By: Javier Zamora
-
The Wealth of Refugees
- How Displaced People Can Build Economies
- By: Alexander Betts
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 19 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in an age of displacement. Refugee numbers are increasing due to a proliferation of fragile states. And yet, rising populist nationalism has undermined the political willingness of rich countries to accept migrants and asylum seekers. Given these contradictory trends, how can we create sustainable refugee policies that enable displaced people to live in safety and dignity, while operating at scale? The Wealth of Refugees draws upon a decade of original qualitative and quantitative research to offer practical solutions.
-
-
Excellent and important work
- By Ben on 01-19-23
By: Alexander Betts
-
We Are Displaced
- My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World
- By: Malala Yousafzai
- Narrated by: Malala Yousafzai - prologue, Neela Vaswani, Deepti Gupta
- Length: 4 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobel Peace Prize winner and New York Times best-selling author Malala Yousafzai introduces some of the people behind the statistics and news stories we read or hear every day about the millions of people displaced worldwide.
-
-
Malala is such a force for good
- By Mary Beth on 01-11-19
By: Malala Yousafzai
-
I Never Thought of It That Way
- How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times
- By: Mónica Guzmán
- Narrated by: Mónica Guzmán
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this timely, personal guide, Mónica, the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, takes you to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt - broken conversations among confounded people. She shows you how to overcome the fear and certainty that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is different from or even opposed to yours.
-
-
Good recommendations, bad justification
- By Jesse Hodges on 01-08-23
By: Mónica Guzmán
-
City of Refugees
- The Story of Three Newcomers Who Breathed Life into a Dying American Town
- By: Susan Hartman
- Narrated by: Samara Naeymi
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
War, persecution, natural disasters, and climate change continue to drive millions around the world from their homes. In this “tender, intimate, and important book—a carefully reported rebuttal to the xenophobic narratives that define so much of modern American politics” (Sarah Stillman, staff writer, The New Yorker), journalist Susan Hartman follows 3 refugees over 8 years and tells the story of how they built new lives in the old manufacturing town of Utica, New York.
-
-
Vivid portrait of three refugee families
- By "dcreader54" on 12-20-22
By: Susan Hartman
-
The Displaced
- Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen - editor
- Narrated by: Greta Jung, Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In January 2017, Donald Trump signed an executive order stopping entry to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries and dramatically cutting the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States each year. The American people spoke up, with protests, marches, donations, and lawsuits that quickly overturned the order. But the refugee caps remained. In The Displaced, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, himself a refugee, brings together a host of prominent refugee writers to explore and illuminate the refugee experience.
-
Call Me American
- A Memoir
- By: Abdi Nor Iftin
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi, Abdi Nor Iftin
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abdi Nor Iftin first fell in love with America from afar. As a child, he learned English by listening to American pop and watching action films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. When US marines landed in Mogadishu to take on the warlords, Abdi cheered the arrival of these Americans, who seemed as heroic as those of the movies. Sporting American clothes and dance moves, he became known around Mogadishu as Abdi American, but when the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab rose to power in 2006, it became dangerous to celebrate Western culture.
-
-
Gripping
- By Nicola on 06-29-18
By: Abdi Nor Iftin
-
As Long as Grass Grows
- The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock
- By: Dina Gilio-Whitaker
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of Native peoples’ resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions and a call for environmentalists to learn from the indigenous community’s rich history of activism.
-
-
Unbalanced Information
- By J. Scott on 08-30-22
-
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
- A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
- By: Anne Fadiman
- Narrated by: Pamela Xiong
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When three-month-old Lia Lee arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos.
-
-
Good audiobook but narrator struggles with basic pronunciation
- By Kate on 06-04-15
By: Anne Fadiman
-
Vagina Obscura
- An Anatomical Voyage
- By: Rachel E. Gross
- Narrated by: Siho Ellsmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Latin term for the female genitalia, pudendum, means “parts for which you should be ashamed”. Until 1651, ovaries were called female testicles. The fallopian tubes are named for a man. Named, claimed, and shamed: Welcome to the story of the female body, as penned by men. Today, a new generation of (mostly) women scientists is finally redrawing the map. With modern tools and fresh perspectives, they’re looking at the organs traditionally bound up in reproduction—the uterus, ovaries, vagina—and seeing within them a new biology of change and resilience.
-
-
poor narration
- By Jane on 08-23-22
By: Rachel E. Gross
-
Fallen Idols
- Twelve Statues That Made History
- By: Alex von Tunzelmann
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this timely and lively look at the act of toppling monuments, the popular historian and author of Blood and Sand explores the vital question of how a society remembers—and confronts—the past.
-
-
Interesting Read
- By Michelle on 01-23-22
-
The Ungrateful Refugee
- What Immigrants Never Tell You
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Dina Nayeri
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Amazing story of resilience and compassion
- By PAH on 09-06-19
By: Dina Nayeri
-
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama
- Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
- By: Nathan Thrall
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos—the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian.
-
-
We Must Look Deeper into this Struggle
- By Amazon Customer on 10-22-23
By: Nathan Thrall
-
In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
-
-
Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
-
I Am Malala
- The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
- By: Malala Yousafzai, Christina Lamb - contributor
- Narrated by: Archie Panjabi
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York.
-
-
One Book Can Change the World
- By Cynthia on 10-13-13
By: Malala Yousafzai, and others
-
A Long Petal of the Sea
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende, Nick Caistor, Amanda Hopkinson
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires.
-
-
Impressive
- By Jean on 05-24-20
By: Isabel Allende, and others
-
The Last Nomad
- Coming of Age in the Somali Desert
- By: Shugri Said Salh
- Narrated by: Waceke Wambaa
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in Somalia, a spare daughter in a large family, Shugri Said Salh was sent at age six to live with her nomadic grandmother in the desert. Salh grew to love the freedom of roaming with her animals and the powerful feeling of community found in nomadic rituals and the oral storytelling of her ancestors. As she came of age, though, both she and her beloved Somalia were forced to confront change, violence, and instability. Honest and tender, The Last Nomad is a riveting coming-of-age story of resilience, survival, and the shifting definitions of home.
-
-
what great Story
- By Muna on 09-23-21
By: Shugri Said Salh
-
To Destroy You Is No Loss
- The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family
- By: Joan Criddle
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Teeda Butt Mam was 15 years old when the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, in 1975, forcing Teeda and her family to join 3,000,000 other people fleeing the city. In minutes, their safe and well-ordered lives were destroyed. Teeda’s story tells of her extraordinary odyssey out of Cambodia to a strange new land.
-
-
Required reading
- By Jay Kuykendall on 02-17-16
By: Joan Criddle
Critic reviews
“Empathetic and caring, Abdo’s expert writing conveys the nuanced stories of people whose lives have been heartwrenchingly upended, and who are doing what they must to survive and rebuild.”—Booklist
“A powerful and extremely timely look at the lives of refugees arriving in the United States from around the world, Diya Abdo’s American Refuge will be a major conversation starter.”—Indy Week
"For countless refugees, Diya Abdo's Every Campus a Refuge changed their lives. Reading her book and their stories will change yours."—Susan Muaddi Darraj, author of A Curious Land, American Book Award winner
Related to this topic
-
After the Last Border
- Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America
- By: Jessica Goudeau
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The welcoming and acceptance of immigrants and refugees have been central to America's identity for centuries - yet America has periodically turned its back in times of the greatest humanitarian need. After the Last Border is an intimate look at the lives of two women as they struggle for the 21st-century American dream, having won the "golden ticket" to settle as refugees in Austin, Texas.
-
-
Great Content. Odd Structure.
- By Susan Stillings on 02-10-21
By: Jessica Goudeau
-
The Ungrateful Refugee
- What Immigrants Never Tell You
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Dina Nayeri
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Amazing story of resilience and compassion
- By PAH on 09-06-19
By: Dina Nayeri
-
A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea
- One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival
- By: Melissa Fleming
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doaa Al Zamel was once an average Syrian girl growing up in a crowded house in a bustling city near the Jordanian border. But in 2011 her life was upended. Inspired by the events of the Arab Spring, Syrians began to stand up against their own oppressive regime. When the army was sent to take control of Doaa's hometown, strict curfews, power outages, water shortages, air raids, and violence disrupted everyday life.
-
-
One woman's story
- By msrae on 07-06-17
By: Melissa Fleming
-
I Shall Not Hate
- A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity
- By: Izzeldin Abuelaish
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish---now known simply as the "Gaza doctor"---captured hearts and headlines around the world in the aftermath of horrific tragedy: On January 16, 2009, Israeli shells hit his home in the Gaza Strip, killing three of his daughters and his niece. By turns inspiring and heartbreaking, hopeful and horrifying, I Shall Not Hate is Abuelaish's account of an extraordinary life.
-
-
A story worth reading, but terrible narration
- By BL Lucas on 04-11-12
-
The Home That Was Our Country
- By: Alia Malek
- Narrated by: Alia Malek
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parents' decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia portrays the Syrians—the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds—who worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political shifts in their country
-
-
Syria as never read before
- By rami hachwi on 09-17-18
By: Alia Malek
-
My Friend Anne Frank
- The Inspiring and Heartbreaking True Story of Best Friends Torn Apart and Reunited Against All Odds
- By: Hannah Pick-Goslar, Dina Kraft
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1933, Hannah Pick-Goslar and her family fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam, where she struck up a close friendship with her next-door neighbor, an outspoken and fun-loving young girl named Anne Frank. For several years, the inseparable pair enjoyed a carefree childhood of games, sleepovers, and treats with the other children in their neighborhood of Rivierenbuurt. But in 1942, Hannah and Anne's lives abruptly changed forever.
-
-
the missing piece to Anne’s story and the complete picture of Hannah’s
- By Wilson on 07-13-23
By: Hannah Pick-Goslar, and others
-
After the Last Border
- Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America
- By: Jessica Goudeau
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The welcoming and acceptance of immigrants and refugees have been central to America's identity for centuries - yet America has periodically turned its back in times of the greatest humanitarian need. After the Last Border is an intimate look at the lives of two women as they struggle for the 21st-century American dream, having won the "golden ticket" to settle as refugees in Austin, Texas.
-
-
Great Content. Odd Structure.
- By Susan Stillings on 02-10-21
By: Jessica Goudeau
-
The Ungrateful Refugee
- What Immigrants Never Tell You
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Dina Nayeri
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Amazing story of resilience and compassion
- By PAH on 09-06-19
By: Dina Nayeri
-
A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea
- One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival
- By: Melissa Fleming
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Doaa Al Zamel was once an average Syrian girl growing up in a crowded house in a bustling city near the Jordanian border. But in 2011 her life was upended. Inspired by the events of the Arab Spring, Syrians began to stand up against their own oppressive regime. When the army was sent to take control of Doaa's hometown, strict curfews, power outages, water shortages, air raids, and violence disrupted everyday life.
-
-
One woman's story
- By msrae on 07-06-17
By: Melissa Fleming
-
I Shall Not Hate
- A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity
- By: Izzeldin Abuelaish
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish---now known simply as the "Gaza doctor"---captured hearts and headlines around the world in the aftermath of horrific tragedy: On January 16, 2009, Israeli shells hit his home in the Gaza Strip, killing three of his daughters and his niece. By turns inspiring and heartbreaking, hopeful and horrifying, I Shall Not Hate is Abuelaish's account of an extraordinary life.
-
-
A story worth reading, but terrible narration
- By BL Lucas on 04-11-12
-
The Home That Was Our Country
- By: Alia Malek
- Narrated by: Alia Malek
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parents' decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia portrays the Syrians—the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds—who worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political shifts in their country
-
-
Syria as never read before
- By rami hachwi on 09-17-18
By: Alia Malek
-
My Friend Anne Frank
- The Inspiring and Heartbreaking True Story of Best Friends Torn Apart and Reunited Against All Odds
- By: Hannah Pick-Goslar, Dina Kraft
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1933, Hannah Pick-Goslar and her family fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam, where she struck up a close friendship with her next-door neighbor, an outspoken and fun-loving young girl named Anne Frank. For several years, the inseparable pair enjoyed a carefree childhood of games, sleepovers, and treats with the other children in their neighborhood of Rivierenbuurt. But in 1942, Hannah and Anne's lives abruptly changed forever.
-
-
the missing piece to Anne’s story and the complete picture of Hannah’s
- By Wilson on 07-13-23
By: Hannah Pick-Goslar, and others
-
Last Boat Out of Shanghai
- The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution
- By: Helen Zia
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dramatic real-life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China's 1949 Communist revolution. Benny must decide either to escape to Hong Kong or navigate the intricacies of a newly Communist China. Annuo, forced to flee with her father, a defeated Nationalist official, becomes an unwelcome exile in Taiwan. The financially strapped Ho fights deportation from the US in order to continue his studies while his family struggles at home. Bing, given away by her poor parents, faces the prospect of a new life among strangers in America.
-
-
Great book, poor performance
- By Helpful Buyer on 07-02-19
By: Helen Zia
-
In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
-
-
Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
-
Finding Samuel Lowe
- China, Jamaica, Harlem
- By: Paula Williams Madison
- Narrated by: Paula Williams Madison
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thanks to her spiteful, jealous Jamaican mother, Nell Vera Lowe was cut off from her Chinese father, Samuel, when she was just a baby, after he announced that he was taking a Chinese bride. By the time Nell was old enough to travel to her father's shop in St. Anne's Bay, he'd taken his family back to China, never learning what became of his eldest daughter. Bereft, Nell left Jamaica for New York to start a new life.
-
-
Fascinating
- By ayodele higgs on 01-27-16
-
Echoes from the Holocaust
- A Memoir
- By: Mira Ryczke Kimmelman
- Narrated by: Susan Marlowe
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The daughter of a Jewish seed exporter, the author was born Mira Ryczke in 1923 in a suburb of the Baltic seaport of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland). Her childhood was happy, and she learned to cherish her faith and heritage. Through the 1930s, Mira's family remained in the Danzig area despite a changing political climate that was compelling many friends and neighbors to leave. With the Polish capitulation to Germany in the autumn of 1939, however, Mira and her family were forced from their home.
-
-
4.5* - memoir of a survivor
- By Christine Newton on 06-09-17
-
Into the Forest
- A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love
- By: Rebecca Frankel
- Narrated by: Natalie Pela
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1942, the Rabinowitz family narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. They miraculously survived two years in the woods—through brutal winters, Typhus outbreaks, and merciless Nazi raids—until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944. After the war, they trekked across the Alps into Italy, where they settled as refugees before eventually immigrating to the United States.
-
-
Great story with an added benefit
- By Scottsville Stu on 12-30-21
By: Rebecca Frankel
-
Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden
- Two Sisters Separated by China’s Civil War
- By: Zhuqing Li
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scions of a once-great southern Chinese family that produced the tutor of the last emperor, Jun and Hong were each other’s best friends until, in their twenties, they were separated at the end of the Chinese Civil War. One became a model Communist, the other a model capitalist. On Taiwan, Jun married a Nationalist general, established a trading company, and emigrated to the United States. On the Communist mainland, Hong built her medical career under a cloud of suspicion about her family and survived two waves of “re-education” before she was acclaimed for her achievements.
-
-
Wonderful Story of a Family’s Survival Through Political Change…
- By Marie G. on 04-12-23
By: Zhuqing Li
-
A Thousand Miles to Freedom
- My Escape from North Korea
- By: Sebastien Falletti, Eunsun Kim
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eunsun Kim was born in North Korea, one of the most secretive and oppressive countries in the modern world. As a child, Eunsun loved her country...despite her school field trips to public executions, daily self-criticism sessions, and the increasing gnaw of hunger as the countrywide famine escalated. By the time she was 11 years old, Eunsun's father and grandparents had died of starvation, and Eunsun too was in danger of starving. Finally her mother decided to escape North Korea with Eunsun and her sister.
-
-
Not Much New Here, but Courage and Hope to Spare
- By Gillian on 03-25-16
By: Sebastien Falletti, and others
-
Dreams in a Time of War
- A Childhood Memoir
- By: Ngugi wa'Thiong'o
- Narrated by: Hakeem Kae-Kazim
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Of Kenya's largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu, Ngugi wa Thiongo was born in 1938 in the backlands of his country (Kiambu district) to a father whose four wives bore him two dozen or so children. Ngugi was the fifth child of the third wife. His father was a peasant farmer forced to become a squatter after the British Imperial Act of 1915. Before going off to school, he had what was then considered a bizarre and inexplicable thirst for learning....
-
-
An escape through education
- By Tango on 06-17-12
-
Keeping Hope Alive
- One Woman: 90,000 Lives Changed
- By: Hawa Abdi, Sarah J. Robbins
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Hawa Abdi, "the Mother Teresa of Somalia" and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is the founder of a massive camp for internally displaced people located a few miles from war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia. Since 1991, when the Somali government collapsed, famine struck, and aid groups fled, she has dedicated herself to providing help for people whose lives have been shattered by violence and poverty.
-
-
How Refreshing
- By Jean Watz on 07-21-14
By: Hawa Abdi, and others
-
Always Remember Your Name
- A True Story of Family and Survival in Auschwitz
- By: Andra Bucci, Tatiana Bucci
- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 4 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On March 28, 1944, six-year-old Tati and her four-year-old sister, Andra, were roused from their sleep and arrested. Along with their mother, Mira, their aunt, and cousin Sergio, they were deported to Auschwitz. Over 230,000 children were deported to the camp, where Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death, performed deadly experiments on them. Only a few dozen children survived, Tati and Andra among them.
-
-
Important read!
- By Holly Thomas on 02-24-22
By: Andra Bucci, and others
-
999
- The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz
- By: Heather Dune Macadam, Caroline Moorehead - foreword
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women - many of them teenagers - were sent to Auschwitz. Their government paid 500 Reich Marks (about $200) apiece for Nazis to take them as slave labor. Of those 999 innocent deportees, only a few survived.
-
-
I don’t think you can ever fully understand
- By Shelley on 02-25-20
By: Heather Dune Macadam, and others
-
Eat the Buddha
- Life and Death in a Tibetan Town
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A gripping portrait of modern Tibet told through the lives of its people, from the best-selling author of Nothing to Envy.
-
-
TIBET
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 08-24-21
By: Barbara Demick