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A Non-Fiction Book List. There are more than 25 million refugees in the world—people who have fled their countries to escape religious persecution, war, violence, and other dangers so intense they find their best option is to leave the only home they have known. If you would like to find out more about the refugee experience, these non-fiction accounts are a great place to start. Click a title to place a hold for pickup at one of our grab-and-go or drive-up locations.
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No friend but the mountains : writing from Manus Prison
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Behrouz Boochani
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.
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The ungrateful refugee : what immigrants never tell you
by
Dina Nayeri
The award-winning author of Refuge draws on first-person testimonies in an urgent portrait of the refugee crisis that reveals how it happened and the harmful ways that Western governments respond to the inhumane conditions refugees endure.
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The girl who smiled beads : a story of war and what comes after
by
Clemantine Wamariya
Traces the author's harrowing experiences as a young child during the Rwanda massacres and displacements, which separated her from her parents and forced the author and her older sister to endure six years as refugees in seven countries, foraging for survival and encountering unexpected acts of cruelty and kindness before she was granted asylum in a profoundly different America.
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Return to the Reich : a Holocaust refugee's secret mission to defeat the Nazis
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Eric Lichtblau
The remarkable story of Fred Mayer, a German-born Jew who escaped Nazi Germany only to return as an American commando on a secret mission behind enemy lines. Based on years of research and interviews with Mayer himself, whom the author was able to meet only months before his death at the age of ninety-four, Return to the Reich is an eye-opening, unforgettable narrative of World War II heroism"
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Hara Hotel : A Tale of Syrian Refugees in Greece
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Teresa Thornhill
Syrian Kurd Juwan Azad left his home and family in Damascus in 2011 to flee military service under the al-Assad regime. After several troubled years as a refugee in Turkey, he arrived in Greece by sea, on the route taken by hundreds of thousands of his fellow Syrians seeking a safe haven in Europe. But as borders closed across the Balkans in early 2016, Juwan and his fellow Syrians found themselves blocked from travelling any further.
Teresa Thornhill volunteered at Hara Hotel, a makeshift camp on the Greece–Macedonia border. An Arabic speaker, she met Syrians from all walks of life as she distributed clothing and organized activities for children. One of the Syrians was Juwan, who would later walk through the mountains of Macedonia to safety in Austria.
In Hara Hotel, Thornhill interweaves a narrative of daily life at the camp with Juwan’s extraordinary story, the recent history of the revolution in Syria, and an account of the ensuing civil war, painting a vivid picture of the predicament of Syrians trapped on Europe’s borders.
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The best we could do : an illustrated memoir
by
Thi Bui
The author describes her experiences as a young Vietnamese immigrant, highlighting her family's move from their war-torn home to the United States in graphic novel format.
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Solito, solita : crossing borders with youth refugees from Central America
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Steven Mayers
Fifteen narrators describe why they fled their homes, what happened on their dangerous journeys through Mexico, how they crossed the borders, and for some, their ongoing struggles to survive in the United States. In an era of fear, xenophobia, and outright lies, these stories amplify the compelling voices of migrant youth. What can they teach us about abuse and abandonment, bravery and resilience, hypocrisy and hope? They bring us into their hearts and onto streets filled with the lure of freedom and fraught with violence. From fending off kidnappers with knives and being locked in freezing holding cells to tearful reunions with parents, Solito, Solita’s narrators bring to light the experiences of young people struggling for a better life across the border.
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Notes on a shipwreck : a story of refugees, borders, and hope
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Davide Enia
A moving firsthand account of migrant landings on the island of Lampedusa that gives voice to refugees, locals, and volunteers while also exploring a deeply personal father-son relationship. On the island of Lampedusa, the southernmost part of Italy, between Africa and Europe, Davide Enia looks in the faces of those who arrive and those who wait, and tells the story of an individual and collective shipwreck. On one side, a multitude in motion, crossing entire nations and then the Mediterranean Sea under conditions beyond any imagination. On the other, a handful of men and women on the border of an era and a continent, trying to welcome the newcomers. In the middle is the author himself, telling of what actually happens at sea and on land, and the failure of words in the attempt to understand the present paradoxes. Enia reveals the emotional consequences of this touching and disconcerting reality, especially in his relationship with his father, a recently retired doctor who agrees to travel with him to Lampedusa. Witnessing together the public pain of those who land and those who save them from death, alongside the private pain of his uncle's illness, pushes them to reinvent their relationship, to forge a new and unprecedented dialogue that replaces the silences of the past
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Rescue : Refugees and the Political Crisis of Our Time
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David Miliband
The President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee discusses why the 65 million people displaced by wars in Syria, Afghanistan and Congo are fleeing their homes, describes their living conditions, and calls for international compassion and assistance to help them.
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Crossing
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Pajtim Statovci
Two boys--Bujar, who has lost his father, and Agim, who struggles with gender identity--leave Albania, adopting new identities as they travel through Italy, the United States, and Finland in search of a better life, but haunted by the past
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The far away brothers : two young migrants and the making of an American life
by
Lauren Markham
"The deeply reported story of identical twin brothers who escape El Salvador's violence to build new lives in California--fighting to survive, to stay, and to belong With intimate access and breathtaking range, Markham offers a coming of age tale that is also a nuanced portrait of Central America's child exodus, an investigation of U.S. immigration policy, and an unforgettable testament to the migrant experience.
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Patriot number one : American dreams in Chinatown
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Lauren Hilgers
A deeply reported analysis of the Chinese immigrant community in the United States offers revisionist insights into how their experiences in China and America have reflected and transformed the American dream.
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The displaced : refugee writers on refugee lives
by
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Published in support of the International Rescue Committee and edited by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, a collection of searing personal essays by prominent international refugees shares candid reflections on the Trump administration's 2017 executive order to limit or ban Muslim refugees from America.
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