Immigrant or Refugee Experience

Read about the challenges, bittersweet joys, and unique triumphs of those who leave their homeland to forge new lives elsewhere.

Updated June 6, 2024
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Black American refugee : escaping the narcissism of the American dream
Drayton, Tiffanie
Paper Book
Named "most anticipated" book of February by Marie Claire, Essence, and A.V. Club   "...extraordinary and representative."--NPR "Drayton explores the ramifications of racism that span generations, global white supremacy, and the pitfalls of...
Solito : a memoir
Zamora, Javier
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller * Read With Jenna Book Club Pick as seen on Today * Winner of the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiography * Winner of the American Library Association Alex Award A young poet tells the inspiring story of his ...
Hijab butch blues : a memoir
H, Lamya
Paper Book
A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this "raw and relatable memoir that challenges societal norms and expectations" (Linah Mohammad, NPR). "A masterful, must-read contribution to conversations on...
The naked don't fear the water : an underground journey with Afghan refugees
Aikins, Matthieu
Paper Book
A NYTBR Editor's Choice  "This is a book of radical empathy, crossing many borders - not just borders that separate nations, but also borders of form, borders of meaning, and borders of possibility. It is powerful and humane and deserves to find a wide, wandering readership." --...
This land is our land : an immigrant's manifesto
Mehta, Suketu
Paper Book
A 2019 NPR Staff Pick "Written 'in sorrow and anger,' this is a brilliant and urgently necessary book, eloquently making the case against bigotry and for all of us migrants--what we are not, who we are, and why we deserve to be welcomed, not feared." --Salman Rushdie
A map of future ruins : on borders and belonging
Markham, Lauren
Paper Book
"This stunning meditation on nostalgia, heritage, and compassion asks us to dismantle the stories we've been told--and told ourselves--in order to naturalize the forms of injustice we've come to understand as order." --Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams   When...
Heart of fire : an immigrant daughter's story
Hirono, Mazie
Paper Book
From Mazie Hirono, the first Asian-American woman and the only immigrant serving in the U.S. Senate, the intimate and inspiring story of how a girl born in rural Japan went on to become 'a hero on the left' (The Washington Post) - and of the mother whose courageous choices made her journey possible.
Illegally yours : a memoir
Agustin, Rafael
Paper Book
A funny and poignant memoir about how as a teenager, TV writer Rafael Agustin (Jane The Virgin) accidentally discovered he was undocumented and how that revelation turned everything he thought he knew about himself and his family upside down. ...
Americanah : a novel
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A modern classic about star-crossed lovers that explores questions of race and being Black in America--and the search for what it means to call a place home. * From the award-winning author of We Should All Be Feminists and Half of a Yellow...
Beautiful country : a memoir
Wang, Qian Julie
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * The moving story of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world--an incandescent debut from an astonishing new talent * A TODAY SHOW #READWITHJENNA PICK In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates...
Fencing with the king : a novel
Abu-Jaber, Diana
Paper Book
The King of Jordan is turning 60! How better to celebrate the occasion than with his favorite pastime--fencing--and with his favorite sparring partner, Gabriel Hamdan, who must be enticed back from America, where he lives with his wife and his daughter, Amani. Amani, a divorced poet, jumps...
My side of the river : a memoir
Gutierrez, Elizabeth Camarillo
Paper Book
A New York Times Editor's PickA People Magazine Best Book to Read in February A Goodreads Most Anticipated Book of 2024 "My Side of the River is both fierce and poetic. It brilliantly reframes border writing while embracing nature and...
The great escape : a true story of forced labor and immigrant dreams in America
Soni, Saket
Paper Book
A New York Times Notable Book of 2023 Shortlisted for the 2023 Moore Prize The astonishing story of immigrants lured to the United States from India and trapped in forced labor--an "eye-opening" "must-read" told by the...
The committed
Nguyen, Viet Thanh
Paper Book
The sequel to The Sympathizer, which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and went on to sell over a million copies worldwide, The Committed tells the story of "the man of two minds" as he comes as a refugee to France and turns his hand to capitalism. The long-awaited new novel from one...
The best possible experience
Injam, Nishanth
Paper Book
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR * An emotionally rich collection of short stories, painting a fascinating portrait of contemporary India and its diaspora and a yearning rendering of the people and places we call home, from a major new literary talent. "A full-hearted, brilliant...
The refugee ocean : a novel
Toutonghi, Pauls
Paper Book
Two refugees find that their lives are inextricably linked--over time and distance--by the perils of history and a single haunting piece of music. Born in Beirut in 1922, Marguerite Toutoungi lives a life of loss and sacrifice. She dreams of traveling to Europe and studying music...
Hard by a great forest
Vardiashvili, Leo
Paper Book
ONE OF NPR's "BOOKS WE LOVE" 2024 NAMED ONE OF THE OBSERVER'S 10 BEST NEW NOVELISTS FOR 2024 "The stakes could barely be higher in Leo Vardiashvili's propulsive page-turner...It's a spellbinding achievement."--The Financial Times "Has a...
The hungry season : a journey of war, love, and survival
Hamilton, Lisa M.
Paper Book
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice | A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year | Finalist for the 2024 Biographers International Plutarch Award | Longlisted for the 2023 California Book Awards | Shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize |...
Migrations : a history of where we all come from
Olusoga, David
Paper Book
Discover how the migration of peoples has shaped the modern world. This beautifully illustrated book details the movement of people and cultures around the world - from the early migrations of Homo erectus out of Africa 50,000 years ago to modern refugee movements and migrations....
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
McBride, James
Paper Book
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the...
A coastline is an immeasurable thing : a memoir across three continents
Daniel, Mary-Alice
Paper Book
A poetic coming-of-age memoir that probes the legacies and myths of family, race, and religion--from Nigeria to England to America Mary-Alice Daniel's family moved from West Africa to England when she was a very young girl, leaving behind the vivid culture of her native land in the...
Go back to where you came from : and other helpful recommendations on how to become American
Ali, Wajahat
Paper Book
This is just one of the many warm, lovely, and helpful tips that Wajahat Ali and other children of immigrants receive on a daily basis. Go back where, exactly? Fremont, California, where he grew up, but is now an unaffordable place to live? Or Pakistan, the country his parents left behind a half...
The dragons, the giant, the women : a memoir
Moore, Wayétu
Paper Book
FINALIST FOR THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY An engrossing memoir of escaping the First Liberian Civil War and building a life in the United States When Wayétu Moore turns five years old, her father and grandmother throw her a big...
Once I was you : a memoir of love and hate in a torn America
Hinojosa, Maria
Paper Book
NPR's Best Books of 2020 BookPage's Best Books of 2020 Real Simple's Best Books of 2020 Boston.com readers voted one of Best Books of 2020 "Anyone striving to understand and improve this country...
This is what America looks like : my journey from refugee to Congresswoman
Omar, Ilhan
Paper Book
Named a Best Political Book of the Year by The Atlantic "This Is What America Looks Like is the origin story of a leader who, finding no set path that would take a person like her to the places she wanted to go, was forced, and free, to chart her own." -The New York Times Book Review ...
When they tell you to be good : a memoir
Shakur, Prince
Paper Book
After immigrating from Jamaica to the United States, Prince Shakur's family is rocked by the murder of Prince's biological father in 1995. Behind the murder is a sordid family truth, scripted in the lines of a diary by an outlawed uncle hell-bent on avenging the murder of Prince's father. As...
We were dreamers : an immigrant superhero origin story
Liu, Simu
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The star of Marvel's first Asian superhero film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, tells his own origin story of being a Chinese immigrant, his battles with cultural stereotypes and his own identity, becoming a TV star, and landing the role of a...
Fairest : a memoir
Talusan, Meredith
Paper Book
Finalist for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction   "Talusan sails past the conventions of trans and immigrant memoirs." --The New York Times Book Review "A ball of light hurled into the dark undertow of migration and survival." --Ocean...
A man of two faces : a memoir, a history, a memorial
Nguyen, Viet Thanh
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD The highly original, blistering, and unconventional memoir by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, which has now sold over one million copies worldwide With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism,...

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