The Ungrateful Refugee

May 13, 2019
Novelist Nayeri (Refuge) explores the plight of refugees through the prism of her own childhood escape from Iran in this provocative account. She begins with an account of how, after being threatened for practicing Christianity in the 1980s, eight-year-old Nayeri and her family fled Iran, found refuge in Italy, and were later granted asylum in the U.S. She then interviews and reflects on other refugees, many of whom escape tyrannical governments and poverty only to be interned in crowded camps as they await asylum: Kambiz, a young Iranian man accused of adultery for befriending a married woman, fled to the Netherlands, where, facing deportation, he killed himself (Nayeri read about him then interviewed his relatives and friends). Majid and Farzaneh, who left Iran for Europe with their daughters, crossed the Aegean Sea in an overcrowded, water-logged boat and experienced refugee camps with overflowing toilets. Valid and Taraa survived threats from the Taliban and a near-fatal car crash only to be granted asylum in Greece after 15 years on the waiting list. Filled with evocative prose (“We are all immigrants from the past, and home lives inside the memory, where we lock it up and pretend it is unchanged”), Nayeri reveals the indignities exiles suffer as they dodge danger and shed their identities and souls while attempting to find safety. This thought-provoking narrative is a moving look at the current immigrant experience.

Starred review from July 1, 2019
This book's combination of personal narrative and collective refugee story is compelling, necessary, and deeply thought and felt. Writing with truth and beauty, Nayeri (Refuge, 2017) reckons with her own past as a refugee, having left Iran at age eight with her mother and brother to eventually settle in Oklahoma. As an adult she has a daughter and does not want to pass down a legacy of identity confusion and a compulsion to move every few years. Throughout her escape, migration, and assimilation, Nayeri understood the importance of telling a story (even if only partially true) that casts her as an intensely desperate person welling with gratitude to be in a better place. Trouble would follow if she judged Iranian pastry superior to the bright blue American slushy, or if she admitted that Iranian school was more rigorous while waiting for her American peers to catch up in math. As part of her inquiry, Nayeri visits a refugee camp in Greece and talks to families still enduring years-long limbo. Folks live in Isobox containers, shop at a store with points in lieu of money, and approximate dishes from home to feel grounded. This valuable account of refugee lives will grip readers' attention.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2019

In this evocative memoir, novelist Nayeri (Refuge) encourages readers to look beyond a simplistic understanding of the lives of refugees, candidly sharing her life story, beginning with her childhood in Iran, her years in an Italian refugee camp, and her life in the present day. Throughout, Nayeri interweaves stories of current and former refugees, gathered while investigating the modern-day process of seeking asylum. The author's background as a fiction writer informs this readable and relatable presentation of difficult topics, but don't expect any sugarcoating--Nayeri is unflinching when it comes to the realities of refugee life. The larger notion of the refugee story is considered, and Nayeri deftly explores the balance between truth and storytelling when it comes to the expectations of both the telling and the hearing of these accounts. She helps us see beyond a person's citizenship status to recognize their humanity, most affectingly questioning whether it's necessary to remove a person's dignity in order to help them. VERDICT A much-needed exploration of the refugee experience; Nayeri's writing will be welcomed by a wide audience. [See Prepub Alert, 2/24/19.]--Anitra Gates, Erie Cty. P.L., PA

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 15, 2019
A novelist turns to nonfiction to illuminate the refugee experience, focusing mostly on her Iranian family but also reporting the sagas of many others fleeing poverty and violence. The word "ungrateful" in the title is intended sarcastically, even bitterly. For Nayeri (Refuge, 2017, etc.), winner of the UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize, that word signifies the misguided mindset of privileged individuals in stable nations who treat desperate refugees with suspicion, condescension, or even outright cruelty. Those unkind hosts falsely believe that refugees expect something for nothing, that maybe those fleeing to save their lives will somehow displace welfare benefits and jobs in a new land. With inventive, powerful prose, Nayeri demonstrates what should be obvious: that refugees give up everything in their native lands only when absolutely necessary--if they remain, they may face poverty, physical torture, or even death. The author, who was born during the Iranian Revolution and came to the U.S. when she was 10, grew up with her brother in a household run by her physician mother and dentist father. However, their relative privilege could not keep them safe from Muslim extremists involved in the revolution. Nayeri's father learned to compromise his principles to get along, but her mother rebelled openly, converting to Christianity. The extremists threatened to kill her and take her children, so her mother gathered her children and fled, leaving Iran secretly via a risky route. Nayeri's father stayed behind, eventually remarrying and starting a new family. The refugees subsisted for 16 months in squalor, mostly in a compound in Italy. Nayeri's mother, desperately working every angle, used her wits and solid education to gain entry to the U.S. The author uses some time-shifting to unfold the narrative, which she divides into five sections: escape (from Iran), refugee camp, asylum (in the U.S.), assimilation, and cultural repatriation. A unique, deeply thought-out refugee saga perfect for our moment.

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