June 20 is World Refugee Day, an annual moment of international recognition organized by the United Nations to honor refugees from around the globe. It's a reminder to people everywhere that each and every person on this planet has a right to seek safety from danger or distress, no matter who they are or where they hail from.
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.
From Nobel Peace Prize winner and New York Times best-selling author Malala Yousafzai comes a powerful listen exploring the experiences of young people displaced from their homes. Through her journeys visiting refugee camps as an activist and advocate, Yousafzai has reflected on her own experiences of displacement as a child in Pakistan. This audiobook shares not only the author's story but also personal tales of the girls she met during her visits to refugee camps—girls who lost their communities, their families, and the only world they've ever known. We Are Displaced serves as a reminder that each and every young refugee is a person with hopes, dreams, and potential, deserving of the same opportunities afforded to other young people.
There are more than 25 million refugees in the world, and yet many of us never contemplate what it is like to be one or imagine the reality of a refugee's daily life. Dina Nayeri's The Ungrateful Refugee challenges listeners to reconsider the refugee experience and how we think about the refugee crisis. Told in her own words and voice, this is the story of how Nayeri, at the age of eight, fled Iran with her mother and brother to live in a hotel-turned-refugee camp that was falling apart, before eventually being granted asylum in the United States. While telling her story, Nayeri also weaves in the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers, taking listeners through the different stages of the refugee journey.
In January 2017, Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting entry into the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries. This presidential mandate drastically cut the number of refugees allowed to enter the US each year. While the order was overturned following an outcry from the American people, the refugee camps remained. The Displaced, edited by Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, is an indictment of this decision to close our doors to those in need. Featuring original essays from prominent refugee writers from around the world, this audiobook also offers an illuminating look at what it means to be forced to leave home and find a place of safety.
The Lightless Sky offers a firsthand look at the modern refugee crisis through a gripping memoir of endurance and survival. In 2006, after the death of his father, 12-year-old Gulwali Passarlay was caught between the Taliban, who wanted to recruit him, and the Americans, who wanted to use him. So, for his own protection, his mother sent him away. Passarlay fled Afghanistan through Iran to Europe and then to Britain, enduring imprisonment, hunger, cruelty, brutality, loneliness, and a near-drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. Eventually, after a 12-month harrowing ordeal, he was granted asylum in England. He went on to win a place at a top university and was chosen to help carry the Olympic torch at the 2012 London Games. A celebration of refugee determination, this listen is also a reminder of our responsibilities to our fellow humans caught in terrifying situations beyond their control.
After the 2016 election of Donald Trump, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio realized that the story she had been avoiding sharing was the one she so urgently needed to tell. She was on DACA at the time, but she had yet to write about being an undocumented immigrant. So, the author set out on a trip across the United States, from New York City to Flint, Michigan, to Miami, to speak with other undocumented immigrants about their hardships and dreams. A blend of memoir and journalism, The Undocumented Americans explores the contradictions and complexities of the lives of undocumented immigrants along with questions of love, duty, family, and survival.
When Rebecca Deng was only four years old, her village was attacked, forcing her to flee for her life. In What They Meant for Evil, Deng, a “Lost Girl” of Sudan, recounts her harrowing story of escaping gunfire, suffering through hunger and illness, running from predators—lions, snakes, crocodiles, and those of the human variety—and grappling with the South Sudan civil war that stole her childhood. Deng's refugee journey began in the late 1980s and brought her all the way to the United States in 2000, when she became one of the first unaccompanied refugee children to enter the country.
In The Girl Who Smiled Beads, Clemantine Wamariya asks listeners to look beyond the common victimized label to see the humanity and strength behind each and every refugee story. Her story began in 1994 when, at the age of six, she fled the Rwandan massacre with her nine-year-old sister, Claire, and spent the next six years migrating through seven African countries, unsure whether her parents were alive or dead. Finally, both she and her sister were granted refugee status in the US and moved to Chicago, where their paths diverged. At 12, Clemantine was taken in by a loving family—but the trauma of years of suffering, fear, and hunger, witnessing death, and being treated as less than human did not magically disappear. As the author shares, she was ultimately saved by the power of her imagination and her commitment to building a new life.
When US Marines landed in Mogadishu to take on the warlords, Abdi Nor Iftin—a young Somalian who had learned English by listening to American pop music and watching action movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger—cheered the arrival of these heroes. But when the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab rose to power in 2006, Western culture suddenly became something dangerous to celebrate. Searching for ways to survive and make a living, Iftin was able to use his English language skills to post secret dispatches, and he found an audience of worldwide listeners. Eventually, however, Iftin was forced to flee his country, and he was lucky enough to win entrance to the United States in the annual visa lottery. Still, his journey was not an easy one. Call Me American is Iftin’s dramatic and deeply moving story, with an epilogue narrated by the author himself.
Farah Ahmedi was born in Afghanistan just as the war between the mujahideen and the Soviets was reaching its peak. Ahmedi grew up in a country in the middle of a violent war. One day on her way to school, she stepped on a landmine, and suddenly her world was changed forever. This is Ahmedi’s award-winning story of perseverance, of a childhood marked by violence and an adolescence as a refugee in America. The result is ultimately a hopeful story that celebrates the kindness of others and her own personal resilience to realize her dreams in the face of all obstacles.
While it's often said that wars are fought by men, somewhere around 300,000 child soldiers are currently involved in conflicts raging worldwide. Human rights activist Ishmael Beah was one of them, and this is his story, in his own words. At the age of 12, Beah fled the rebels attacking his Sierra Leone village and began wandering around a land torn by violence. By the time he turned 13, he'd been picked up, trained, and armed by the government army. Once a gentle and kind-hearted boy, he quickly discovered his capacity for committing horrible acts. A Long Way Gone is a rare firsthand account of the life of a child soldier, and Beah tells his story with power and remarkable honesty.
In this acclaimed memoir, Mawi Asgedom tells of his journey as a young boy from a refugee camp in Sudan to Chicago. There, his family struggled to get by and survived with the help of welfare. But no matter what he faced, Asgedom remembered his father's advice: "treat people…as though they were angels sent from heaven." Ultimately, Asgedom was able to realize his dreams and earn a full-tuition scholarship to Harvard University. Of Beetles and Angels is a captivating and inspirational listen, narrated by Asgedom himself.
This version of Malala Yousafzai's best-selling memoir was written with children in mind. As a young girl in Pakistan, Malala was taught and encouraged by her parents to stand up for what she believes, and this is her story of bravery in the face of extremism and intolerance. Inspiring and timely, Malala is essential listening for children just learning about refugees, including kids their age, as they become aware of injustices and develop compassion for all people seeking safety and a better life.
