Speed Reading - Three books for Refugee Week
As
a child, Iranian-born Dina Nayeri found sanctuary in the West. The Ungrateful
Refugee (Canongate, £16.99; Tablet price £15.30) examines what it means to
leave one’s homeland and become a refugee. Interwoven with her family’s own
experiences are the stories of those less fortunate. Nayeri writes eloquently
about the desperate desire to be believed by immigration officers and the
struggles of assimilation. The right to seek asylum is enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so Nayeri questions why refugees have
obsessively to prove their worth and gratitude to the rich nations that
reluctantly take them in.
Lost
Children Archive (Fourth Estate, £16.99; Tablet price £15.30) highlights the
appalling treatment of unaccompanied Latin American children arriving on the
United States border, many of whom are fleeing poverty or drug gangs. The
title refers to those who “have lost the right to a childhood” and those who
simply disappear. If they don’t die in the desert, they are detained and
deported. Valeria Luiselli’s novel draws urgent parallels between the children
free to travel south, and the brutal system that refuses to allow the
vulnerable to join their families in the north.
After
volunteering in a refugee centre in Athens, Christy Lefteri was inspired to
write her poignant novel as a way of sharing some of the stories she heard
there. The Beekeeper of Aleppo (Zaffre, £12.99; Tablet price £11.70) describes
the flight from war-torn Syria of Nuri and his blind wife, Afra. Lefteri
explores trauma, broken dreams, love and loss. Bees are a symbol of hope:
“Where there are bees, there are flowers, and where there are flowers there is
new life and hope.”
Originally published by The Tablet