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The Ungrateful Refugee

What Immigrants Never Tell You

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The Ungrateful Refugee

By: Dina Nayeri
Narrated by: Dlna Nayeri
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About this listen

What is it like to be a refugee? It is a question few in the West give much thought to, and yet to be a refugee - or an immigrant - is to grapple with your place in the world, attempting to reconcile the life you have known with the unfamiliar. With this comes the weight of the expectations (and fears and resentment) of those born in the host country; foremost is the burden of gratitude: to be forever thankful for the space you have been allowed.

Nayeri weaves together the story of her own refugee journey - as a child forced to flee Iran, eventually finding asylum in America - with the stories of others making their own journeys today. She sets out the stages of the refugee experience and gives voice to those in today's refugee camps or who are trying to settle in a new country, and for many of whom the search for home can be a forever state.

The Ungrateful Refugee offers a new, complete narrative of resettlement and recalibrates the conversation around the refugee experience. But above all here are the real human stories of what it is like to be forced to flee your home, to journey in hope of a better, safer life, and, for the lucky few, the struggle to start afresh in a new culture.

©2019 Dina Nayeri (P)2019 Canongate Books Ltd Cultural & Regional Refugee Middle East Iran

Critic reviews

"[Nayeri's] exploration of the exile's predicament is tender and urgent." (New Yorker)
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What a relief - listening to this book helped me understand my own journey so much better.

It also helps unravel the behaviour of not only the refugees and the destitute, but also people in general as Dina digs into the basic emotional needs of us as humans.

Great work Dina.

Dina is so gifted and so brave!

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The author balances out the Brianne and complexity of the forced migration experiences with the day to day of being human. I highly recommend the book!

Brilliant stories and narration

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