This Sunday 14 June to Saturday 20 June is Refugee Week, 2020. Here’s a compelling collection of immigrant and refugee stories for you to explore:
Fiction
-
- 2017
My reviews are here:
- The Beekeeper of Aleppo
- Invented Lives
- Daughter of Bad Times
- Isinglass
- The Children’s House
- The Cage
- On Java Ridge
- Hinterland
- Amnesty
- Our Lady of the Nile
- The Trespassers
- Sodden Downstream
Non-fiction & memoir
-
- 2019
My reviews are here:
- My Sack Full of Memories
- Songs of a War Boy
- Lion Hearts
- Growing Up African in Australia
- Miss Ex-Yugoslavia
- Always Another Country
- The Power of Good People
- No Place to Lay One’s Head
- Cockroaches
- With Just One Suitcase
- Walking Free
- Surviving Year Zero
Donations to the Asylum Seeker Resource Network can be made here.
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog 
There’s also Eldorado by Laurent Gaudé, about immigrants who sail to Europe.
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By: Emma on June 13, 2020
at 5:45 pm
I haven’t read that one… but there are heaps more than these that I’ve suggested. And no wonder, because immigration and refugee settlement is commonplace all over the world, and it’s time we stopped pretending that it’s unusual.
And it should be commonplace, because the wealthy countries ought to be accepting refugees.
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By: Lisa Hill on June 13, 2020
at 7:27 pm
Black Rock White City?
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By: wadholloway on June 14, 2020
at 7:51 am
Yes indeed.
But I wanted to keep it to twelve and to choose ones that people might not know of in this context…
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By: Lisa Hill on June 14, 2020
at 10:18 am
I have a copy of The Beekeeper of Aleppo but was thinking to give it away unread. Seeing it on your list and reading your review has made me re-consider.
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By: BookerTalk on June 15, 2020
at 3:49 am
That is so nice to hear, thank you!
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By: Lisa Hill on June 15, 2020
at 8:57 am
This is such a great list, Lisa. I have a copy of On the Java Ridge, and have read Walking Free (totally unforgettable) and the Meg Mundell.
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By: kimbofo on June 15, 2020
at 11:19 pm
Thanks, Kim:)
It’s one of those things I mean to do every year and then I get side-tracked…
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By: Lisa Hill on June 15, 2020
at 11:51 pm
Hello Lisa and ANZ Lit Readers,
The selection of literature chronicling refugee experiences are very compelling. I think this body of literary texts need to be advanced more within school curriculum.
Additional refugee literature promoted in the U.S. are as follows:
Penguin Book of Migration Literature edited by Dr. Dohra Ahmad
The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives
Refuge: A Novel by Dina Nayeri
We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World by Malala Yousafzai
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Distance Between Us: A Memoir by Reyna Grande
The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui
Take Care,
Sonia
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By: smaxine27 on June 16, 2020
at 5:24 am
Thanks, Maxine, this is a useful list.
But it’s a tricky thing choosing books for compulsory reading in schools. Teachers dealing with a wide range of abilities means that often they set short stories or even just extracts, because if they set a novel, it won’t get read.
Here in Australia, however, we have a number of thoughtful authors and publishers who have produced picture story books about refugees for an audience of older children. I had a whole collection of these in my school library, and I used to read them to the children and then discuss them, and I also put up a display of these books for borrowing. Shaun Tan, for instance, has created a wordless graphic novel called The Arrival, and I’ve seen it bring tears to a child’s eyes…
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By: Lisa Hill on June 16, 2020
at 10:31 am
[…] because we all share a common humanity. Some readers will remember that last year I posted a suggested reading list for Refugee Week and this year I could add two more to the fiction list (links are to my […]
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By: Where the Water Ends, by Zoe Holman | ANZ LitLovers LitBlog on June 20, 2021
at 9:00 am