Refuge: A Novel
Written by Dina Nayeri
Narrated by Mozhan Marno and Youssif Kamal
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
An Iranian girl escapes to America as a child, but her father stays behind. Over twenty years, as she transforms from confused immigrant to overachieving Westerner to sophisticated European transplant, daughter and father know each other only from their visits: four crucial visits over two decades, each in a different international city. The longer they are apart, the more their lives diverge, but also the more each comes to need the other's wisdom and, ultimately, rescue. Meanwhile, refugees of all nationalities are flowing into Europe under troubling conditions. Wanting to help, but also looking for a lost sense of home, our grown-up transplant finds herself quickly entranced by a world that is at once everything she has missed and nothing that she has ever known. Will her immersion in the lives of these new refugees allow her the grace to save her father?
Refuge charts the deeply moving lifetime relationship between a father and a daughter, seen through the prism of global immigration. Beautifully written, full of insight, charm, and humor, the novel subtly exposes the parts of ourselves that get left behind in the wake of diaspora and ultimately asks: Must home always be a physical place, or can we find it in another person?
Dina Nayeri
Dina Nayeri was born in Iran during the revolution and arrived in America when she was ten years old. The winner of the UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize as well as a National Endowment for the Arts literature grant, she is the author of two novels. A contributor to The New York Times, The Guardian, Granta, and many other publications, she graduated from Princeton, Harvard, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She currently resides in London.
More audiobooks from Dina Nayeri
The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Who Gets Believed: When the Truth Isn't Enough Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5
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Reviews for Refuge
21 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Refugee novels are extremely popular right now. Not surprising with the amount of refugees on the move around the world and the debate in various countries about what to do with them, to welcome them or send them back. What sets this novel apart is that it is partly based on the authors own experiences as a refugee as she left Iran with her mother and brother due to persucution by the religious police. She would see her father only four times in the preceding years. Her character Niloo would mimic her creators experiences, at least for her early years. As a displaced person her early years were filled with poverty and the sense of never really belongings anywhere. As an adult Niloo will need her own space, a small perimeter that she fills with the things that belong only to her, allowing none even her own husband, to breach this area. She struggles for a sense of self, a way to belong to something. She and her husband live in the Netherlands, a place where anti-inflammatory furor is rising, but here she will find an immigrant community if exiles. The visits to her dentist, but opium addicted father in various countries are often a disaster, she is often embarrassed by him and his Iranian ways, of talking and acting. Most of the humor in this novel comes from her father, and some of the insights and sayings are often beautifully rendered. There is an honesty, realism to this well written book, that strikes a powerful chord. In the authors note she mentions an Iranian who, as in the book, sets himself on fire, after years of living in Holland for eleven years and soon to be deported. The author does a great job of showing the desperation of these refugees and what they go through trying to acclimate, fit into a society they little understand.I loved Dina's first book and this second effort is just as worthy, if not more so. ARC from publisher.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a story of immigration told in the fractured relationship between a woman and the father who remained behind in Iran. Niloo was eight when she was bundled into a car and left Istafan, Iran forever. Her mother, a Christian, was in danger and her father remained behind, his successful dental practice and opium addiction keeping him there. Over then years, there were a few brief, unsatisfactory reunions. Niloo is a success story. Her mother works long hours in menial jobs to support them and Niloo attends Yale, where she meets her French husband. They settle in Amsterdam, but as Geert Wilders gains popularity as the head of a xenophobic and right wing political party, Niloo's insecurities become less manageable and she becomes involved with a group of Iranian refugees trying to survive as they fight for legal status in a country becoming increasingly unwelcoming. Nayeri does a wonderful job showing how the uncertainties of refugee life reverberate in a person's life years after they've settled in a new country. Niloo needs rigid rules to survive and carries a backpack around with the documents she finds necessary to proving that she belongs where she is. Nayeri is also effective in describing the relationship between father and daughter, with all the layers of disappointment and love. This is a debut novel and this is very much evident in the novel, as well as the autobiographical nature of much of the contents. Nayeri has important things to communicate about what being a refugee means and for this, the novel is worth reading.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Excellent insightful and a better eel for the complex Iranian culture.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I loved the writing and the premise of the book. I was deeply disappointed by the narration, especially the male voice. It was too abrupt and did not seem to flow well. I also think the voice overs need to at least know how to pronounce proper nouns as they should not sound like an unexposed westerner. The book would have been. Ore enjoyable but for the narration.