Refugee Week in the UK runs this year from 17th to 23rd June. It is the Uk’s largest festival to promote understanding of why people seek sanctuary and celebrate the contribution of Refugees living in The UK.
Some facts (taken from the UK Government’s statistics for the year ending March 2019)
- 26,547 asylum applications were made in the last 12 months, an 8% decrease on the previous year.
- Of the 19.6 million non-EEA arrivals in the UK that year, only 0.16% were seeking asylum.
- Only 39% of those seeking asylum were awarded a grant of protection last year.
- 40% of those 17304 were children.
- Asylum cases often take years to be resolved, the backlog of cases pending an initial decision was 30,027 in March 2019.
So to celebrate Refugee week in bookish style, here is a list of books either written by or about Refugees:
The Silver Sword – Ian Serraillier
Today’s Refugee crisis is actually nothing new, in the aftermath of the second world war, an estimated 12-14 million people were displaced across the continent. In this children’s classic, Serraillier tells the story of four young Poles, drawn together as they try and find their parents in a war torn Europe.
Baddawi – Leila Abdelrazaq
Baddawi is a graphic novel, which started as a web-comic, it tells the stories Abdelrazaq’s father told her about growing up in a refugee camp in Palestine. As well as stories of playground games of marbles, it recounts the nightmare of military raids by the Israeli and Lebanese armies, which were the backdrop to this young boy’s coming of age.
The Girl Who Smiled Beads – Clemantine Wamariya
New York Times bestseller, The Girl Who Smiled Beads is Wamariya’s own story which starts in Rwanda when she was only six years old. As the war raged on, Clemantine and her sister Claire are forced to flee the fighting and spend six years trying to seek refuge, through seven African countries, before finally being granted refugee status in America.
The Refugees – Viet Thanh Nguyen
Born in Vietnam, Viet Thanh Nguyen arrived in American in 1975 as a refugee. His first stop was a refugee camp in Pennsylvania, one of four camps in the US that accommodated refugees from Vietnam. The family later settled in San Jose, California where they ran a Vietnamese grocery store. The Pulitzer Prize winner’s latest book is a collection of short stories focused on the exiled Vietnamese community in California.
Call Me American – Abdi Nor Iftin
Born in war-torn Mogadishu Abdi Nor Iftin learned English watching action movies and was obsessed with hip-hop clothes and dance moves. When radical Islamists took control of the country in 2006 Abdi’s love of western culture became dangerous. As Somalia became more dangerous for him he fled to Kenya and then in a stroke of amazing luck won entrance to the USA in the annual lottery. Call Me American is Abdi’s memoir telling the story of his harrowing journey to his current home in Maine.
Goodbye Sarajevo – Atka Reid and Hana Schofield
It’s easy to think that since the end of The Second World War, refugees come from elsewhere, not Europe. This is forgetting the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. Goodbye Sarajevo is written by two sisters who were part of a family trapped in the city during the conflict. Hana is only twelve when her older sister Atka puts her on a UN evacuation bus out of the city to a refugee camp in Bosnia, where all alone, she has to learn to survive. Atka is left to care for their five younger siblings amidst the mortar attacks and food shortages in the city. This story tells how even a calm middle-class life can be destroyed by war and displacement.
Inside Out and Back Again – Thanhha Lai
Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out and Back Again, told in verse, is the story of the author’s experience fleeing the Fall of Saigon. The story follows the family as they escape Saigon on board a ship toward America, all told from Ha’s childs-eye view. The book won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2011 and is a #1 New York Times Bestseller.
The Lightless Sky – Gulwali Passarlay
Subtitled “An Afghan Refugee Boy’s Journey of Escape to a New Life in Britain”, this is the true story of the author and his family which starts in Afghanistan and crosses half the world. Gulwali’s father was killed in a shoot out with American troops, his mother became worried for both her son’s safety when they started to get hounded by the Taliban who wanted them to become freedom fighters. Smuggled out of Afghanistan at great cost, the story follows their horrendous journey which finally ends with the brothers reunited in the UK.
The Book of My Lives – Aleksander Hemon
Aleksander Hemon was born in Sarajevo, whilst he was visiting Chicago his hometown became a war zone and the tourist became a refugee. This 2013 work of non-fiction is a collection of his essays that tell stories of his youth in Sarajevo as well as his adult life in Chicago. In an interview about his 2016 novel “The Making of Zombie Wars”, Hemon likened Zombies to the often dehumanized immigrants. “It is appalling in so many ways; these people are refugees and they’re being shut out”.
A Beginners Guide to Acting English – Shappi Khorsandi
Comedian and author Shappi Khorsandi came to the UK in 1977, she was five years old. The Shah of Iran had been overthrown, her father Hadi’s views on dictatorship and religious fundamentalism were not popular with the Ayatollah, so the family fled for their own safety. This is the story of a young girl and her brother trying to adapt to a new country, with its strange food, cold weather and a language they did not speak.
We hope you find some good suggestions there and we’ll be back with more recommendations lists soon. If you want to ensure you never miss any of these, subscribe now.
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