"A poet's firsthand account of a month volunteering on the frontlines of the Syrian refugee crisis. In the fall of 2015, Steven Heighton made an overnight decision to travel to the frontlines of the Syrian refugee crisis in Greece and enlist as a volunteer. He arrived on the isle of Lesvos with a duffel bag and a dubious grasp of Greek, his mother's native tongue, and worked on the landing beaches and in OXY---a jerrybuilt, ad hoc transit camp providing...

Though Agate Nesaule eventually immigrated to the United States and became successful in her professional life, she found herself suffering from depression and unable to come to terms with its cause-until she found her voice and began to share what happened to her and her family at the hands of invading Russian soldiers. Nesaule reveals the effects of hunger, both physical and emotional, in stories about begging Russian soldiers for food, the abusive...

"An inspiring memoir of resilience by a young survivor of the war in Ukraine, as told through her diary entries -- a harrowing and ultimately hopeful survival story. Yeva Skalietska's story begins on her twelfth birthday in Kharkiv, where she has been living with her grandmother since she was a baby. Ten days later, the only life she'd ever known was shattered. On February 24, 2022, her city was suddenly under attack as Russia launched its horrifying...

"With the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iraqis abroad, hoping to return one day to a better Iraq, became uncertain exiles. Return to Ruin tells the human story of this exile in the context of decades of U.S. imperial interests in Iraq--from the U.S. backing of the 1963 Ba'th coup and support of Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s, to the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 invasion and occupation. Zainab Saleh shares the experiences of Iraqis she met over fourteen years...

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. Though the refugee caps have been raised under President Biden, admissions so far have fallen short. In...

Thirty Seconds of Silence is the story of 170 years of injustice and discrimination against the Baha'i Faith, the largest religious minority in Iran. In this vivid and emotional first person memoir, Fereshteh starts out as a young girl living a happy life with her family, despite the rampant discrimination, persecution, and oppression that surrounds them for their beliefs. One day her father is warned that the town's Muslim clergy are urging people...

"In 2013, Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani was illegally detained on Manus Island, a refugee detention centre off the coast of Australia. He has been there ever since. This book is the result. Laboriously tapped out on a mobile phone and translated from the Farsi. It is a voice of witness, an act of survival. A lyric first-hand account. A cry of resistance. A vivid portrait through five years of incarceration and exile."--

His only weapon was a cellphone. When civil war broke out in his home country in 2011, Hassan Al Kontar was a young Syrian living and working in the UAE. He refused to return to Syria for compulsory military service and lived illegally before being deported to Malaysia in November 2017. Four months later, unable to obtain a visa for any other country, he became-trapped in the arrivals zone at Kuala Lumpur Airport. Exiled by war and trapped by geopolitics,...

The story of a child refugee who faced her fears, found her home and accidentally made history When she was just nine, Golriz Ghahraman and her parents were forced to flee their home in Iran. After a terrifying and uncertain journey, they landed in Auckland where they were able to seek asylum and, ultimately, create a new life. In this open and intimate account, Ghahraman talks about making a home in Aotearoa New Zealand, her work as a human rights...

In this gripping family tale, Catherine Ehrlich explores her Austrian grandparents' influential lives at the crossroads of German and Jewish national movements. Weaving her grandmother Irma's spellbinding memoirs into her narrative, she profiles a charismatic woman, who confronts history with courage and rebuilds lives, for herself and Europe's dispossessed. Starting out in Bohemia's picturesque countryside, Irma studies languages in Prague alongside...