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The Road from Raqqa
- A Story of Brotherhood, Borders, and Belonging
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Crossing years and continents, the harrowing story of the road to reunion for two Syrian brothers who - despite a homeland at war and an ocean between them - hold fast to the bonds of family.
Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize
"Riveting...a resplendent love letter to an obliterated city.” (The New York Times)
"The Road from Raqqa had me gripped from the first page. I couldn't put it down." (Christy Lefteri, author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo)
The Alkasem brothers, Riyad and Bashar, spend their childhood in Raqqa, the Syrian city that would later become the capital of ISIS. As a teenager in the 1980s, Riyad witnesses the devastating aftermath of the Hama massacre - an atrocity that the Hafez al-Assad regime commits upon its people. Wanting to expand his notion of government and justice, Riyad moves to the United States to study the law, but his plans are derailed and he eventually falls in love with a Southern belle.
They move to a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, where they raise two sons and where Riyad opens a restaurant - Café Rakka - cooking the food his grandmother used to make. But he finds himself confronted with the darker side of American freedoms: the hardscrabble life of a newly arrived immigrant, enduring bigotry, poverty, and loneliness. Years pass, and at the height of Syria’s civil war, fearing for his family’s safety halfway across the world, he risks his own life by making a dangerous trip back to Raqqa.
Bashar, meanwhile, stayed in Syria. After his older brother moves to America, Bashar embarks on a brilliant legal career under the same corrupt Assad government that Riyad despises. Reluctant to abandon his comfortable (albeit conflicted) life, he fails to perceive the threat of ISIS until it’s nearly too late.
The Road from Raqqa brings us into the lives of two brothers bound by their love for each other and for the war-ravaged city they call home. It’s about a family caught in the middle of the most significant global events of the new millennium, America’s fraught but hopeful relationship to its own immigrants, and the toll of dictatorship and war on everyday families. It’s a book that captures all the desperation, tenacity, and hope that come with the revelation that we can find home in one another when the lands of our forefathers fail us.
Critic Reviews
"A poignant debut... Fluidly written and emotionally powerful, this page-turner reveals the human cost of war, terrorism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration rhetoric. Readers will find despair and hope in this moving account.” (Publishers Weekly)
“Syrian brothers take different paths of immigration, neither easy, in this thoughtful account.... [Jordan Ritter] Conn’s affecting narrative touches deeply not just on these contrasting immigration issues...but also on how the bonds of family and old community can exist even when people are uprooted.” (Kirkus Reviews)
“The Road from Raqqa had me gripped from the first page. I couldn’t put it down. It taught me a lot about a troubled political system that has led to one of the worst humanitarian crises of our times. But it is also about love and family, about tradition and new horizons and the deep complexities of our own fears and hopes.” (Christy Lefteri, author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo)
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What listeners say about The Road from Raqqa
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-04-20
Gripping & Meaningful
Jordan Ritter Conn unfurls the story of family—lineage, bond, separation, reunion and the unknown future—as he takes the reader deep into worlds that coexist and connect while at the same time seem as if they reside in two completely different universes. Ritter Conn deftly educates the reader on history and geopolitics while introducing the Alkasem family with exquisite depth and tenderness to which every human can relate.
Gripping and powerful. Best book I’ve read this year!
1 person found this helpful
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- Brandy
- 12-02-22
What an incredible story!
I found out about this book by eating at Cafe Rakka, I’m so glad Chef Rakka has it there on display and so incredibly grateful to hear this story. Your family is incredible!!
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-18-22
far exceeded original expectations
outstanding, memorable, human. this is one I will remember for many, many years. connects many different worlds.
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- Gunar
- 11-27-21
A story you should hear.
This book was very well written and tells a story we should all hear. I highly recommend this book. I listened through quickly because it really kept my attention.
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- Darcy
- 09-07-20
Enjoyed this very much
The narrator did an excellent job of reading this engaging and often harrowing story. A great winding path of two Syrian brothers, along which I learned about Syrian tribal culture, Raqqa, their families, and the terrors of war, ISIS, and becoming a refugee. Also, our country, as experienced by a new American.
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- GB
- 08-17-20
An engaging view of the refugee situation in Syria
This book provides a remarkable insight into the challenges both in Syria and for those refugees trying to escape war in the Middle East. Having read “Homes: A Refugee Story” which collected a number of awards for a similar story, I have to say that this book was quite a bit better. This did not feel like a dry biography but more like you were sitting at the table with the Alkasem family as they sipped tea and talked. The main characters, older brother, Riyad, and younger brother, Bashar, are very relatable and I truly enjoyed hearing their story. There were times I wish the author might have provided more information on the challenges Riyad faced after moving to the U.S. as he went from poverty to being a successful businessman and then back to poverty and then back to being a successful businessman but I ended up appreciating the author’s focus on the family’s experience in Syria and escaping Syria.
As someone who has spent most of their life in the United States, I found it fascinating to listen to the different views of the two brothers. Riyad was always the wanderer and rebel. His outspokenness against the al-Assad regime (the father Hafez rather than the son and current ruler, Bashar) eventually forces him to make his way to the United States. Bashar chose to stay in the remote desert community of Raqqa to care for his family and try to become a successful lawyer and judge within the repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad. When the two come back together in a Syria being torn apart by rebels, I listened to the viewpoints of both brothers in amazement. Riyad, supporting the revolutionary groups, puts his family and himself in danger without even knowing it. Bashar, supporting and working within the existing government, recognizes the danger of the rebel groups but fails to acknowledge the dangers his own government is putting himself and his family in.
I recommend this book very highly to anyone interested in gaining perspective on both the war in Syria and the challenges that refugees face because of that war.
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- Ken
- 07-28-20
Vivid and moving story
This book is beautifully written and very moving. It tells the story of two brothers from Raqqa, Syria, and their quest to find peace and opportunity for themselves and their family. I loved learning more about this family and the culture of Syria. I hope and pray Syria will one day be safe to live in again.
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Disappointed
- By Josh on 04-06-21
By: Patricia Engel
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Correspondents
- A Novel
- By: Tim Murphy
- Narrated by: Necar Zadegan, Assaf Cohen
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The world is Rita Khoury’s oyster. The bright and driven daughter of a Boston-area Irish Arab family that has risen over the generations from poor immigrants to part of the coastal elite, Rita grows up in a 1980s cultural mishmash. Corned beef and cabbage sit on the dinner table alongside stuffed grape leaves and tabouleh, all cooked by Rita’s mother, an Irish nurse who met her Lebanese surgeon husband while working at a hospital together. The unconventional yet close-knit family bonds over summers at the beach, wedding line dances, and a shared obsession with the Red Sox.
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The Arab American Dream
- By Iggie on 08-15-19
By: Tim Murphy
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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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.
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Great Content. Odd Structure.
- By Susan Stillings on 02-10-21
By: Jessica Goudeau
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The Ungrateful Refugee
- What Immigrants Never Tell You
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Dina Nayeri
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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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.
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Amazing story of resilience and compassion
- By PAH on 09-06-19
By: Dina Nayeri
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Midnight in Mexico
- A Reporter's Journey through a Country's Descent into Darkness
- By: Alfredo Corchado
- Narrated by: Timothy Andres Pabon
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Noted Mexican American journalist Alfredo Corchado refuses to shrink from reporting on government corruption, murders in Juarez, or the ruthless drug cartels of Mexico. One night, Corchado received a tip that he could be the next target of the Zetas, a violent paramilitary group - and that he had 24 hours to find out if the threat was true. Midnight in Mexico is the story of one man's quest to report the truth of his country - as he races to save his own life.
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Fascinating & suspenseful historical non-fiction!
- By Ruth Barrie on 06-30-19
By: Alfredo Corchado
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Somewhere in the Unknown World
- A Collective Refugee Memoir
- By: Kao Kalia Yang
- Narrated by: Kao Kalia Yang, Kurt Kwan
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Somewhere in the Unknown World is a themed collection of stories of refugees from around the world who have converged on Minneapolis, collected and told by the award-winning author of The Latehomecomer and The Song Poet.
By: Kao Kalia Yang
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Infinite Country
- By: Patricia Engel
- Narrated by: Inés del Castillo
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she might also miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family.
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Disappointed
- By Josh on 04-06-21
By: Patricia Engel
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Correspondents
- A Novel
- By: Tim Murphy
- Narrated by: Necar Zadegan, Assaf Cohen
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
The world is Rita Khoury’s oyster. The bright and driven daughter of a Boston-area Irish Arab family that has risen over the generations from poor immigrants to part of the coastal elite, Rita grows up in a 1980s cultural mishmash. Corned beef and cabbage sit on the dinner table alongside stuffed grape leaves and tabouleh, all cooked by Rita’s mother, an Irish nurse who met her Lebanese surgeon husband while working at a hospital together. The unconventional yet close-knit family bonds over summers at the beach, wedding line dances, and a shared obsession with the Red Sox.
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The Arab American Dream
- By Iggie on 08-15-19
By: Tim Murphy
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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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.
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One woman's story
- By msrae on 07-06-17
By: Melissa Fleming
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The Words of My Father
- Love and Pain in Palestine
- By: Yousef Bashir
- Narrated by: Yousef Bashir
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A Palestinian American activist recalls his adolescence in Gaza during the Second Intifada and how he made a strong commitment to peace in the face of devastating brutality in this moving, candid, and transformative memoir that reminds us of the importance of looking beyond prejudice, anger, and fear.
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Loved this book
- By debby brooks on 09-09-21
By: Yousef Bashir
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Against the Loveless World
- A Novel
- By: Susan Abulhawa
- Narrated by: Susan Abulhawa
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As Nahr sits, locked away in solitary confinement, she spends her days reflecting on the dramatic events that landed her in prison in a country she barely knows. Born in Kuwait in the 70s to Palestinian refugees, she dreamed of falling in love with the perfect man, raising children, and possibly opening her own beauty salon. Instead, the man she thinks she loves jilts her after a brief marriage, her family teeters on the brink of poverty, she’s forced to prostitute herself, and the US invasion of Iraq makes her a refugee, as her parents had been.
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Don’t narrate your own books!
- By Sara on 11-21-20
By: Susan Abulhawa
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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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.
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Fantastic story
- By jolie on 04-02-23
By: Ariel Sabar
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On All Fronts
- The Education of a Journalist
- By: Clarissa Ward
- Narrated by: Clarissa Ward
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Clarissa Ward is a world-renowned conflict reporter. In this strange age of crisis where there really is no front line, she has moved from one hot zone to the next. With multiple assignments in Syria, Egypt, and Afghanistan, Ward, who speaks seven languages, has been based in Baghdad, Beirut, Beijing, and Moscow. She has seen and documented the violent remaking of the world at close range. With her deep empathy, Ward finds a way to tell the hardest stories. On All Fronts is the riveting account of Ward’s singular career and of journalism in this age of extremism.
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Insights gained!
- By J. Harry on 11-10-20
By: Clarissa Ward
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Disturbed in Their Nests
- A Journey from Sudan's Dinkaland to San Diego's City Heights
- By: Alephonsion Deng, Judy A. Bernstein
- Narrated by: Dion Graham, Suzie Althens
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Nineteen-year-old refugee Alephonsion Deng, from war-ravaged Sudan, had great expectations when he arrived in America three weeks before two planes crashed into the World Trade Towers. Suburban mom Judy Bernstein assumed the teenaged "Lost Boys of Sudan" needed a little mothering and a change of scenery. Partnered through a mentoring program in San Diego, these two individuals from opposite sides of the world began an eye-opening journey that radically altered each other's vision and life. Disturbed in Their Nests recounts the first year of this heartwarming partnership.
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Amazing
- By Debra Hinz on 02-03-20
By: Alephonsion Deng, and others
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The Wrong End of the Telescope
- By: Rabih Alameddine
- Narrated by: Lameece Issaq
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Mina Simpson, a Lebanese doctor, arrives at the infamous Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, Greece, after being urgently summoned for help by her friend who runs an NGO there. Alienated from her family except for her beloved brother, Mina has avoided being so close to her homeland for decades. But with a week off work and apart from her wife of 30 years, Mina hopes to accomplish something meaningful, among the abundance of Western volunteers who pose for selfies with beached dinghies and the camp's children.
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A must read…
- By omid on 07-20-22
By: Rabih Alameddine
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The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez
- A Border Story
- By: Aaron Bobrow-Strain
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo, Aaron Bobrow-Strain
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Aida Hernandez was born in 1987 in Agua Prieta, Mexico, the nearby US border was little more than a worn-down fence. Eight years later, Aida’s mother took her and her siblings to live in Douglas, Arizona. By then, the border had become one of the most heavily policed sites in America. Undocumented, Aida fought to make her way. She learned English, watched Friends, and, after having a baby at 16, dreamed of teaching dance and moving with her son to New York City. But life had other plans.
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Amazing
- By Riley on 05-17-20