Displaced Voices: 5 Books By Refugee Authors You Need To Read
With growing numbers of people fleeing war, famine and climate change across the world, it’s never been more important to amplify refugee voices. By the end of 2024, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency predicts that 120 million people globally will be forcibly displaced or stateless. So, to mark World Refugee Day this 20 June, Service95 recommends five authors from around the world whose stories are not to be missed.
1. Sisters’ Entrance by Emtithal Mahmoud
In 2003, Emtithal Mahmoud was just 10 years old when she witnessed genocide in her native Darfur, Sudan. The horrendous destruction of her people inspired Mahmoud to write her first poem – she went on to become the 2015 World Poetry Slam Champion and 2016 Woman of the World Co-Champion. She published her powerful and moving debut poetry collection Sisters’ Entrance in 2018, recounting her recovery and grieving the events that shaped her life.
2. Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds by Mondiant Dogon
Dogon is a Congolese author, human rights activist and refugee ambassador. Born a Bagogwe Tutsi in the early 1990s, he was just a toddler when the genocide against Tutsis in neighbouring Rwanda spilled over into Congo, and he and his family were forced to flee. This memoir, which recounts their journey over decades spent surviving refugee camps, is a rare first-hand experience. Dogan, who later went to university – studying as an undergrad in Rwanda followed by a master’s at New York University – was shortlisted for the Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing in 2022.
3. We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib
Samra Habib is a Pakistani-Canadian photographer, writer and activist. They are known for their work including the photo documentary project, Just Me And Allah – an acclaimed examination of what it means to be queer and Muslim, as well as the bestselling memoir We Have Always Been Here. Exploring Habib’s journey from Pakistan, entering Canada as a child refugee to escaping an arranged marriage at 16, it is a statement of queer empowerment and a powerful message for the Muslim LGBTQIA+ community.
4. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s multi-awarding winning novel The Sympathizer examines the legacy of the Vietnam War through the eyes of a double agent spying on a group of soldiers while in Los Angeles. In 1975, when Nguyen was four, the North Vietnamese conquered South Vietnam and he and his family left for America. They spent the first few years living in a Vietnamese refugee camp in Pennsylvania, before his parents moved them to California to open a grocery store. Nguyen won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for The Sympathizer, and now teaches English and American Studies at the University of Southern California.
5. No Friend But The Mountains by Behrouz Boochani
In 2013, Kurdish-Iranian journalist, writer and associate professor Behrouz Boochani fled Iran after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard raided Werya, a Kurdish Language political magazine he had co-founded in Ilam. Seeking asylum in Australia, he was imprisoned, spending six years in a detention facility on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. No Friend But The Mountains was written partially on a hidden mobile phone he kept while incarcerated. It won the 2019 Victorian Prize for Literature.
For more information on the work UNHCR does around the world, please visit unhcr.org
