Written by Zara Noor
At the start of this month, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced new rules for migrants living in the UK. Settlement is no longer automatic, but an ‘earned privilege’, dependent on salary, ‘contribution’ and ‘character’. Last month, Reform UK vowed to suspend the entire asylum system for five years if they win the next general election. In February, Restore Britain promised to not only end immigration, but ‘reverse’ it.
Refugees and asylum seekers have not been treated kindly, by the press or legislators. Hatred, race riots, and Tommy Robinson marches have terrified people of colour, and London’s multiculturalism has been attacked instead of celebrated. The groups facing the most persecution are some of Britain’s most vulnerable – people fleeing crises and seeking safety.
People that are, most importantly, people. To remind others of this fact, I’ve compiled a list of my favourite works of literature from refugee authors. Their stories are filled with pain and injustice, but share a core of hope (the most quintessentially human quality). By no means is this list exhaustive, but if you’re looking for an alternative to doomscrolling Instagram reels, these books, poems, and memoirs are where I’d recommend you start.
I Who Have Never Known Men – Jacqueline Harpman
Harpman spent her childhood as a half-Jewish war refugee fleeing Nazi persecution. The novella tells the story of a post-apocalyptic world – perhaps it’s a razed, barren Earth, perhaps it’s somewhere else entirely. The reader is faced with myriad mysteries to uncover, pulled along on a story of survival when 39 women escape the cage of an unknown captor. The bleakness of both freedom and imprisonment in the plot echoes her experience of evading Nazi capture, as exile and alienation characterise life both during and after confinement. It’s one of the few stories I’ve read that is completely and utterly captivating.
A Thousand Splendid Suns — Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini was first an asylum seeker before becoming a naturalised citizen of the United States. He knows how to break a reader’s heart. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a story of incredible perseverance, exile, family, and punishment – following two women of different generations navigate the changing political forces in Afghanistan. Tears were shed. While there is some hope amongst the horror, the deteriorating status of women’s rights in the modern state under the Taliban adds a whole new layer of tragedy for contemporary readers. For example – without giving too much away – the tentatively optimistic ending is completely undercut by knowledge of the last five years’ events.
The Girl Who Smiled Beads – Clementine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil
This memoir is the poignant and heartfelt true story of a refugee from Rwanda – Clementine Wamariya. The book is co-authored by Elizabeth Weil, but the memories are Wamariya’s alone. Her words are both unique and universal: I found myself noticing similarities in her story to refugees I’ve spoken with, but also recognising the painfully specific details of her trauma. An example that comes to mind is her description of aid workers, and their bias-driven shock that a refugee can speak five languages, or had a previously successful career. It reminds me of a man I met while volunteering in Calais, who was an engineer in Eritrea before being displaced. He could speak four languages fluently, including German and English, and ended up giving me some very detailed career and life advice. The only condition was that if I became a politician, he requested I make sure refugees in Calais are treated with dignity and humanity in legislation. Safe and legal routes are essential, and he expressed his frustration at the infantilisation and dehumanisation of real people seeking refuge. A woman died crossing the channel the day after we spoke.
In a country that doesn’t need me, doesn’t know my name, my skin colour, my favourite coffee, or even who I was – Mohammed Mousa
Mohammed Mousa, born and raised in Gaza, is a Palestinian poet and refugee. If I had to choose one of his poems to recommend, it would have to be this one. Written as an exchange of dialogue, it’s a conversation peppered with philosophical intensity juxtaposed by everyday mundanity, covering life, war, and chamomile tea. I first discovered Mousa’s work in Out of Gaza, a collection of 15 Palestinian poets put together by Atef Alshaer and Alan Morrison. Out of Gaza demonstrates the capacity of literature to be a method of resistance, bringing together voices that refused to be silenced. Alshaer’s foreword is poetic itself, and my favourite line is this: “poetry can never replace the physical presence of humanity in the form of flesh and spirit, of personality, but it can speak for their absence.” Mousa’s poem does just this. He describes the losses that accompany displacement and the heartbreak of starting again, in a country that doesn’t know his name, or even who he was.
Aubade with Burning City – Ocean Vuong
Vietnamese author, Ocean Vuong, was displaced to a refugee camp in the Philippines at just two years old. He was eventually granted asylum to the United States, and has since written numerous works on generational trauma, identity, and cultural dualism. His poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, contains some of my most loved poems, ever. Unpopular opinion – I was not the biggest fan of his novel, On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous, so I would discourage readers from starting there.
In this poetry collection, picking a top favourite is very difficult. Aubade with Burning City, however, is truly one of the most skilled constructions of literature I’ve seen. It has incredible storytelling in such few lines, and a setting that is both magical and harrowing. The fragmented enjambment flicks between themes of light and darkness, between purity, youth and violence. Interspersed with the lyrics of ‘White Christmas’ (the actual trigger-code for the American forces’ evacuation in Vietnam), it subverts the aubade form, which is traditionally a sweet story of two lovers parting. This poem gives us two lovers, but has them part against the backdrop of war and violence in the fall of Saigon, 1975. Haunting, mystical, raw.
The Motherland – Vladimir Nabokov
Although he is most famous for his controversial novel, Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov doesn’t just write about creepy old men. One of my favourite of his poems, The Motherland, explores nostalgia and memory as a stateless refugee from Russia. The rhyming couplets are lyrical, lilting, and remind me of a lullaby coaxing someone to sleep. It’s a poem of longing for home.
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Born in Ukraine and moving frequently throughout his childhood, Conrad’s family were politically exiled to Northern Russia in 1862. Whether their relegation to the treacherous conditions of Vologda amounts to refugee displacement is contested, but the themes in Conrad’s writing are certainly shaped by alienation. After years spent shunted around Eastern Europe, resulting in the death of both his parents, Conrad resolved to become a sailor, inspiring his literary work. Written after returning home from a colonial expedition, Heart of Darkness is an unsettling novella, a wild narrative story where imperial stereotypes are critiqued, confronted, and reified. Conrad’s plot reflects the collapse of humanity, the “darkness” of the human heart, and the evils of colonisation. But – in doing so, he contributes to racist stereotypes of the native African inhabitants. I’ll let readers make their own minds up – is Conrad’s work contributing to or critiquing Victorian-era racism?
Beloved — Toni Morrison
Now, this isn’t a refugee-written story, but I will bend the criteria slightly to include it, because this is my favourite book of all time. The defining story of motherhood, children, loss, and the trauma of slavery. One of the most acclaimed novels of the 20th century and truly deserving of the accolade. The protagonist, Sethe, flees from the cruelty of her enslaver; her story is one of bravery in unthinkable conditions, much like the others in this list. Toni Morrison’s writing is unforgiving – it’s confusing, disorienting, and difficult to grasp at times. This is its beauty.
Even a small glimpse into the work of these authors should be enough to demonstrate both their ordinary humanity, and their brilliance as poets and novelists. One of the most talented writers I’ve ever come across, however, was a 9-year-old girl I met while volunteering for a children’s refugee charity in London. I had tasked her and her 6-year-old brother with writing a creative short story in English. The brother returned with a genuinely impressive page filled with time-travelling portals and aliens in New York. His sister, by contrast, turned in one sentence, telling me that her brother’s head looks like a fallen coconut. Kids, eh?
