The Ungrateful Refugee
What Immigrants Never Tell You
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 $29.60
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Dina Nayeri
-
By:
-
Dina Nayeri
About this listen
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 25 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.
©2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
-
Who Gets Believed
- When the Truth Isn't Enough
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Ayesha Antoine
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For fans of David Grann, Malcolm Gladwell, and Atul Gawande, Who Gets Believed? is a book as deeply personal as it is profound in its reflections on morals, language, human psychology, and the unspoken social codes that determine how we relate to one another.
-
-
Stories to hear and learn from
- By Ghazaleh Pakdel on 11-10-23
By: Dina Nayeri
-
Everything Sad Is Untrue
- (A True Story)
- By: Daniel Nayeri
- Narrated by: Daniel Nayeri
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the front of a middle-school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much.
-
-
Could not get through it—2 out of 7 hrs
- By AbqRD on 09-13-20
By: Daniel Nayeri
-
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.
-
Refuge
- A Novel
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, Youssif Kamal
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An Iranian girl escapes to America as a child, but her father stays behind. Over 20 years, as she transforms from confused immigrant to overachieving Westerner to sophisticated European transplant, daughter and father know each other only from their visits: four crucial visits over two decades, each in a different international city. The longer they are apart, the more their lives diverge, but also the more each comes to need the other's wisdom and, ultimately, rescue.
-
-
an outstanding work of fiction
- By Vicki Sidie on 08-16-17
By: Dina Nayeri
-
Dancing in the Glory of Monsters
- The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa
- By: Jason Stearns
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the heart of Africa is Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, bordering nine other nations, that since 1996 has been wracked by a brutal and unstaunchable war in which millions have died. And yet, despite its epic proportions, it has received little sustained media attention. In this deeply reported book, Jason K. Stearns vividly tells the story of this misunderstood conflict through the experiences of those who engineered and perpetrated it.
-
-
First book I've found that explains DRC
- By Amazon Customer on 09-09-17
By: Jason Stearns
-
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
-
Who Gets Believed
- When the Truth Isn't Enough
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Ayesha Antoine
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For fans of David Grann, Malcolm Gladwell, and Atul Gawande, Who Gets Believed? is a book as deeply personal as it is profound in its reflections on morals, language, human psychology, and the unspoken social codes that determine how we relate to one another.
-
-
Stories to hear and learn from
- By Ghazaleh Pakdel on 11-10-23
By: Dina Nayeri
-
Everything Sad Is Untrue
- (A True Story)
- By: Daniel Nayeri
- Narrated by: Daniel Nayeri
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the front of a middle-school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much.
-
-
Could not get through it—2 out of 7 hrs
- By AbqRD on 09-13-20
By: Daniel Nayeri
-
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.
-
Refuge
- A Novel
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, Youssif Kamal
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An Iranian girl escapes to America as a child, but her father stays behind. Over 20 years, as she transforms from confused immigrant to overachieving Westerner to sophisticated European transplant, daughter and father know each other only from their visits: four crucial visits over two decades, each in a different international city. The longer they are apart, the more their lives diverge, but also the more each comes to need the other's wisdom and, ultimately, rescue.
-
-
an outstanding work of fiction
- By Vicki Sidie on 08-16-17
By: Dina Nayeri
-
Dancing in the Glory of Monsters
- The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa
- By: Jason Stearns
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the heart of Africa is Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, bordering nine other nations, that since 1996 has been wracked by a brutal and unstaunchable war in which millions have died. And yet, despite its epic proportions, it has received little sustained media attention. In this deeply reported book, Jason K. Stearns vividly tells the story of this misunderstood conflict through the experiences of those who engineered and perpetrated it.
-
-
First book I've found that explains DRC
- By Amazon Customer on 09-09-17
By: Jason Stearns
-
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
-
Aftershocks
- By: Nadia Owusu
- Narrated by: Nadia Owusu
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Nadia Owusu followed her father, a United Nations official, from Europe to Africa and back again. Just as she and her family settled into a new home, her father would tell them it was time to say their goodbyes. The instability wrought by Nadia’s nomadic childhood was deepened by family secrets and fractures, both lived and inherited. Her Armenian American mother, who abandoned Nadia when she was two, would periodically reappear, only to vanish again. Her father, a Ghanaian, the great hero of her life, died when she was 13.
-
-
Struggled with author’s writing style
- By AF on 06-22-21
By: Nadia Owusu
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
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
-
Crying in H Mart
- A Memoir
- By: Michelle Zauner
- Narrated by: Michelle Zauner
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian-American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.
-
-
Broken Korean
- By Tim on 04-21-21
By: Michelle Zauner
-
All My Knotted-Up Life
- A Memoir
- By: Beth Moore
- Narrated by: Beth Moore
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All My Knotted-Up Life is a beautifully crafted portrait of resilience and survival, a poignant reminder of God’s enduring faithfulness, and proof positive that if we ever truly took the time to hear people’s full stories . . . we’d all walk around slack-jawed.
-
-
Finished in one day
- By nedmac mama on 02-22-23
By: Beth Moore
-
To Make Men Free
- A History of the Republican Party
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Heather Cox Richardson
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the shifting ideology of the Republican Party from the antebellum era to the Great Recession. While progressive Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower revived Lincoln’s vision and expanded the government, their opponents appealed to Americans’ latent racism and xenophobia to regain political power, linking taxation and regulation to redistribution and socialism. In the modern era, the schism within the Republican Party has grown wider, pulling the GOP ever further from its founding principles.
-
-
Fascinating read!
- By Marsha on 12-27-21
-
Yellowface
- A Novel
- By: R. F. Kuang
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.
-
-
I've never hated a character harder
- By ashelyn downs on 07-26-23
By: R. F. Kuang
-
The Newcomers
- Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom
- By: Helen Thorpe
- Narrated by: Kate Handford
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Offering a nuanced and transformative take on immigration, multiculturalism, and America's role on the global stage, The Newcomers follows and reflects on the lives of 22 immigrant teenagers throughout the course of their 2015-2016 school year at Denver's South High School. Unfamiliar with American culture or the English language, the students range from the ages of 14 to 19 and come from nations struggling with drought, famine, or war.
-
-
Surprisingly great read.
- By Ellen V. Moore on 05-23-18
By: Helen Thorpe
-
The Good Immigrant
- 26 Writers Reflect on America
- By: Nikesh Shukla - editor, Chimene Suleyman - editor
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller, full cast
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An urgent collection of essays by first- and second-generation immigrants, exploring what it's like to be othered in an increasingly divided America.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Kristie Smith on 11-06-19
By: Nikesh Shukla - editor, and others
-
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
-
The Undocumented Americans
- By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.
-
-
Raw, heartbreaking - we can do better by others
- By RapaciousReader on 04-11-20
-
Daughters of Smoke and Fire
- A Novel
- By: Ava Homa
- Narrated by: Vaneh Assadourian
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in Iran, this extraordinary debut novel takes listeners into the everyday lives of the Kurds. Leila dreams of making films to bring the suppressed stories of her people onto the global stage, but obstacles keep piling up. Leila's younger brother Chia, influenced by their father's past torture, imprisonment, and his deep-seated desire for justice, begins to engage with social and political affairs. But his activism grows increasingly risky and one day he disappears in Tehran. Seeking answers about her brother's whereabouts, Leila fears the worst and begins a campaign to save him.
-
-
Excellent Kurdish story
- By Barbara S on 03-09-24
By: Ava Homa
Featured Article: Honoring the Courage and Heart of Displaced Peoples on World Refugee Day
World Refugee Day is a time to celebrate the bravery and strength of those who have had to flee their homes in search of protection. But it's also a day of empathy, of understanding, and of listening, so that we may hear the stories of refugees and the struggles they've had to endure. This collection of biographies and memoirs written by and about refugees offers a window into their lived experiences and an invitation to a greater sense of compassion.
Related to this topic
-
My Father's Paradise
- A Son's Search For His Family's Past
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
-
-
Great story, poorly narrated
- By Oren Kessler on 09-10-24
By: Ariel Sabar
-
The Sum of Our Days
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory - and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.
-
-
She does not disappoint
- By ChiChi's Rule on 06-01-22
By: Isabel Allende
-
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
-
Infidel
- By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Narrated by: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This New York Times best-seller is the astonishing life story of award-winning humanitarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A deeply respected advocate for free speech and women's rights, Hirsi Ali also lives under armed protection because of her outspoken criticism of the Islamic faith in which she was raised.
-
-
Tough, Candid Assessment
- By Paul Mullen on 02-18-08
By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
-
The Chief Witness
- Escape from China's Modern-Day Concentration Camps
- By: Sayragul Sauytbay, Alexandra Cavelius
- Narrated by: Xifeng Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in China’s northwestern province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the Chinese authorities incarcerated her. Her crime? Being Kazakh, one of China’s ethnic minorities. The northwestern province borders the largest number of foreign nations and is the point in China that is the closest to Europe. In recent years, it has become home to more than 1,200 penal camps - modern-day gulags that are estimated to house three million members of the Kazakh and Uyghur minorities.
-
-
A Must Read!
- By Stephanie on 12-22-21
By: Sayragul Sauytbay, and others
-
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
-
My Father's Paradise
- A Son's Search For His Family's Past
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
-
-
Great story, poorly narrated
- By Oren Kessler on 09-10-24
By: Ariel Sabar
-
The Sum of Our Days
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory - and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.
-
-
She does not disappoint
- By ChiChi's Rule on 06-01-22
By: Isabel Allende
-
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
-
Infidel
- By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Narrated by: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This New York Times best-seller is the astonishing life story of award-winning humanitarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A deeply respected advocate for free speech and women's rights, Hirsi Ali also lives under armed protection because of her outspoken criticism of the Islamic faith in which she was raised.
-
-
Tough, Candid Assessment
- By Paul Mullen on 02-18-08
By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
-
The Chief Witness
- Escape from China's Modern-Day Concentration Camps
- By: Sayragul Sauytbay, Alexandra Cavelius
- Narrated by: Xifeng Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in China’s northwestern province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the Chinese authorities incarcerated her. Her crime? Being Kazakh, one of China’s ethnic minorities. The northwestern province borders the largest number of foreign nations and is the point in China that is the closest to Europe. In recent years, it has become home to more than 1,200 penal camps - modern-day gulags that are estimated to house three million members of the Kazakh and Uyghur minorities.
-
-
A Must Read!
- By Stephanie on 12-22-21
By: Sayragul Sauytbay, and others
-
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
-
Between Two Worlds
- Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam
- By: Zainab Salbi, Laurie Becklund
- Narrated by: Josephine Bailey
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Zainab Salbi was 11-years-old when her father was chosen to serve as Saddam Hussein's personal pilot, her family often forced to spend weekends with Saddam where he watched their every move. As a palace insider, Zainab offers a singular glimpse of what it is like to come of age under a dictator and provides an intimate portrait of the man she was taught to call "uncle". She watched as Saddam pitted friends, spouses, and even children against each other to compete for his approval.
-
-
An excellent history lesson
- By Ella on 12-01-09
By: Zainab Salbi, and others
-
They Said They Wanted Revolution
- A Memoir of My Parents
- By: Neda Toloui-Semnani
- Narrated by: Neda Toloui-Semnani
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1979, Neda Toloui-Semnani’s parents left the United States for Iran to join the revolution. But the promise of those early heady days in Tehran was warped by the rise of the Islamic Republic. With the new regime came international isolation, cultural devastation, and profound personal loss for Neda. Her father was arrested and her mother was forced to make a desperate escape, pregnant and with Neda in tow.
-
-
I learned so much. Great pacing, felt like I time-traveled
- By Jess Fuchs on 02-07-22
-
Daring to Drive
- A Saudi Woman's Awakening
- By: Manal al-Sharif
- Narrated by: Lameece Issaq
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A ferociously intimate memoir by a devout woman from a modest family in Saudi Arabia who became the unexpected leader of a courageous movement to support women's right to drive.
-
-
The rain begins with a single drop
- By Sara on 07-01-17
By: Manal al-Sharif
-
Claiming My Place: Coming of Age in the Shadow of the Holocaust
- By: Planaria Price, Helen Reichmann West
- Narrated by: Ilyana Kadushin
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Barbara Reichmann, once known as Gucia Gomolinska: smart, determined, independent, and steadfast in the face of injustice. A Jew growing up in predominantly Catholic Poland during the 1920s and ’30s, Gucia studies hard, makes friends, falls in love, and dreams of a bright future. Her world is turned upside down when Nazis invade Poland and establish the first Jewish ghetto of World War II in her town of Piotrko´w Trybunalski.
-
-
Amazing
- By Nordic Artisan on 07-09-18
By: Planaria Price, and others
-
The Girl Who Smiled Beads
- A Story of War and What Comes After
- By: Clemantine Wamariya, Elizabeth Weil
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbors began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were thunder. In 1994, she and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the next six years migrating through seven African countries, searching for safety—perpetually hungry, imprisoned and abused, enduring and escaping refugee camps, finding unexpected kindness, witnessing inhuman cruelty. They did not know whether their parents were dead or alive.
-
-
Narrator detracts from story
- By Laura on 01-16-19
By: Clemantine Wamariya, and others
-
The Undocumented Americans
- By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.
-
-
Raw, heartbreaking - we can do better by others
- By RapaciousReader on 04-11-20
-
Nine Continents
- A Memoir In and Out of China
- By: Xiaolu Guo
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Xiaolu Guo has traveled further than most to become who she needed to be. Now, as she experiences the birth of her daughter in a London maternity ward surrounded by women from all over the world, she looks back on that journey. It begins in the fishing village shack on the East China Sea where her illiterate grandparents raised her, and brings her to a rapidly changing Beijing, full of contradictions: a thriving underground art scene amid mass censorship, curious Westerners who held out affection only to disappear back home.
-
-
must read
- By Jeff Darlington on 10-22-17
By: Xiaolu Guo
-
Two Crosses
- Secrets of the Cross, Book 1
- By: Elizabeth Musser
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The glimmering Huguenot cross she so innocently wears leads her deep into the shadows. When Gabriella Madison arrives in the French village of Castelnau in 1961 to continue her university studies, she doesn’t anticipate being drawn into the secretive world behind the Algerian war for independence from France. And the further she delves into the war efforts, the more her faith is challenged. The people who surround her bring a whirlwind of transforming forces.
-
-
Faith, Romance, Spies, and Fascinating History
- By Amazon Customer on 05-02-19
By: Elizabeth Musser
-
Under Red Skies
- Three Generations of Life, Loss, and Hope in China
- By: Karoline Kan
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deeply personal and shocking look at how China is coming to terms with its conflicted past as it emerges into a modern, cutting-edge superpower.
-
-
An intimate view of real life in China
- By Lonnie G. Hardy, Jr. on 08-15-19
By: Karoline Kan
-
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
-
Find Me Unafraid
- Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum
- By: Kennedy Odede, Jessica Posner
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson, Mandy Siegfried, P.J. Ochlan (foreword)
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Find Me Unafraid tells the uncommon love story between two uncommon people whose collaboration sparked a successful movement to transform the lives of vulnerable girls and the urban poor. With a foreword by Nicholas Kristof.
-
-
A difficult and rewarding listen
- By R. MCRACKAN on 08-23-18
By: Kennedy Odede, and others
-
Maya's Notebook
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Maria Cabezas
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Neglected by her parents, 19-year-old Maya Nidal has grown up in Berkeley with her grandparents. Her grandmother Nini is a force of nature, a woman whose formidable strength helped her build a new life after emigrating from Chile in 1973. Popo, Maya's grandfather, is a gentle man whose solid, comforting presence helps calm the turbulence of Maya's adolescence. When Popo dies of cancer, Maya goes completely off the rails, turning to drugs, alcohol, and petty crime in a downward spiral that eventually bottoms out in Las Vegas.
-
-
Narrator ruins this book
- By R.J. Mulder on 05-13-14
By: Isabel Allende
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams
- By: Daniel Nayeri
- Narrated by: Daniel Nayeri
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the tale of an exciting journey along the Silk Road with a young Monk and his newfound guardian, Samir, a larger than life character and the so-called "Seller of Dreams". The man is a scammer; his biggest skill being the ability to talk his way into getting what he wants. While that talking did save Monkey's life, it has left a lot of people furious with Samir— furious enough to hire assassins. Monkey decides to try and save Samir from the attempts on his life—as a way to pay off his debt! If he can save Samir six times, he'll be a free man...but will they all survive that long?
-
-
Masterful Storytelling
- By B. McGuffey on 04-08-23