19 Books About Refugees That Everyone Should Read

"A Land of Permanent Goodbyes" ($14, originally $18)

Journalist and author Atia Abawi tells the story of Tareq, a young man whose life and family in Syria are torn apart by civil war. As a family, they flee their homeland for Turkey and then again for Greece, against a litany of obstacles that test their resilience.

"After the Last Border" ($20, originally $27)

When it comes to books about refugees, this one takes an unconventional approach, telling the stories of two refugee women after they've resettled in the US. Author Jessica Goudeau profiles Mu Naw, a Christian from Myanmar, and Hasna, a Muslim from Syria, as they each try to find their footing in Austin, Texas, amid one of the most chaotic immigration policy chapters in US history.

"The Girl Who Smiled Beads" ($17, originally $26)

Clemantine Wamariya was 12 when she and her sister were granted refugee status in Chicago, years after first fleeing the Rwandan massacre of the 1990s. In their new city, the sisters were separated, as Clemantine was adopted by a family who raised her, sent her to private school, and eventually to Yale.

"Solito" ($11, originally $29)

This memoir comes from poet Javier Zamora, who migrated from El Salvador to the US at the age of 9. The book follows Zamora through Guatemala, Mexico, and finally across the southern border of the US as he attempts to reunite with his parents who fled north years before.

"The Secret Gate: A True Story of Courage and Sacrifice During the Collapse of Afghanistan" ($24, originally $29)

This book follows author and feminist activist Homeira Qaderi on her unlikely escape from Afghanistan during its fall back into the hands of the Taliban in 2021. Facing death from the fundamentalist regime, Qaderi found a golden ticket in Sam Aronson, a new-to-the-job American diplomat, who managed to help her and her young son Siawash escape their homeland just in time.

"The Refugee Ocean" ($14, originally $28)

This novel jumps from Lebanon to Cuba and from Syria to Washington, D.C. — and even through generations, from the 1920s to the modern day. From Pauls Toutonghi, a first-generation writer, this book connects two strangers from totally different worlds in unexpected ways.

"The Ungrateful Refugee" ($17)

Offering a more provocative perspective on the refugee experience, writer Dina Nayeri, who fled Iran at age 8, blends her own experiences with stories from other refugees, painting a portrait of the injustices immigrants and refugees often face once they've resettled. This book is a challenge to anyone who believes there's such a thing as "good" and "bad" immigrants.

"What Strange Paradise" ($15, originally $26)

This novel fictionalizes familiar images that came out of the Syrian refugee crisis, when bodies were washing up on European shores. It follows two kids who learn to take care of one another despite not speaking the same language.

"When Stars Are Scattered" ($9, originally $14)

A graphic novel about brothers who have grown up in a Kenyan refugee camp, "When Stars are Scattered" offers a tender look at building family in the most unlikely of circumstances.

"A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: The Journey of Doaa al Zamel" ($11, originally $27)

Told through the chief spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, this book follows Doaa al Zamel, a 19-year-old Syrian, who was one of only two people to survive when her boat — carrying 10 others — capsized in the Mediterranean en route to Europe.

"Threads: From the Refugee Crisis" ($25)

This large format graphic novel takes readers inside a refugee camp in Calais, France, which housed many African and Middle Eastern refugees until it was evacuated in 2016. British cartoon-artist Kate Evans depicts the families and conversations she observed while visiting, juxtaposing it with images of anti-immigrant rhetoric displayed on cell phones.

"The Verging Cities" ($17)

Winner of the 2017 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry, "The Verging Cities" examines the "binational" towns of El Paso and Juarez, neighbors at the border between the US and Mexico. The author's poems offer a scathing look at the impact of border control in the region, as well as the prejudice and violence undocumented immigrants are subject to.

"The Refugees" ($18, originally $25)

Viet Thanh Nguyen, 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of "The Sympathizer," wrote "The Refugees" over a period of 20 years. A collection of short stories, he's dedicated it to "all refugees, everywhere." Many of Nguyen's characters in the book were forced to flee Vietnam, as Nguyen was, though some have very different stories — like one American veteran who fought in Vietnam.

"The Farm in The Green Mountains" ($16, originally $19)

Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer and her husband Carl fled Berlin with their two children in 1933, after the Nazis banned Carl's plays. The family — accustomed to sophisticated Weimar Germany — resettled in Vermont, where they learned to raise chickens and pigs. Alice acclimated to her new life with humor, and the good sense to write it all down. This first-person account, originally published in German in 1949, has been reissued, giving new life to a rare story of good fortune from the WWII era.

"The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir" ($12, originally $29)

First-time comics author Thi Bui wrote and illustrated this memoir, a retelling of the story of her family's escape from South Vietnam. It moves between her past and her present, and highlights how becoming a mother has completely transformed her perspective on her parents' harrowing journey from Vietnam.

"Salt Houses" ($33)

In poet Hala Alyan's debut novel, readers follow a Palestinian family forced to flee Nablus after the Six-Day War with Israel in 1967. The family is continually displaced, from Kuwait to Jordan and finally to the United States, and each member has a different reaction to their shared circumstances.

"Exit West" ($13, originally $28)

This brief novel centers around Saeed and Nadia, young lovers who flee a country resembling Pakistan. Mohsin Hamid, author of "The Reluctant Fundamentalist," uses magical realism to transport the two from country to country, evoking imagery from old Arabic tales that will be familiar to any "Aladdin" fans.

"City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp" ($18, originally $20)

When Human Rights Watch researcher Ben Rawlence visited Dabaab, a town on the Kenyan border, he discovered that what was built to be a temporary refuge for people fleeing the civil war in Somalia had become permanent — and incredibly dangerous. Hundreds of thousands of families were stuck there, in that crime-plagued tent city lacking in even the basics.

"To live in this city of thorns is to be trapped mentally, as well as physically," Rawlence writes, "your thoughts constantly flickering between impossible dreams and a nightmarish reality."

"Afterland" ($11, originally $16)

"Afterland," which won the 2016 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, is the first book of poetry from Hmong-American author Mai Der Vang. In it, she tells a story of how her people fled Laos after Americans — who had employed them in the "Secret War" — had left them behind. (A story that might resonate with some Afghanis following the US retreat in 2021.) Vang's collection is both specific to the Hmong experience and familiar to refugees everywhere: "Once, I lived in the valley./ Then I moved to the tent of ghosts."

Emma Glassman-Hughes (she/her) is the associate editor at PS Balance. In her seven years as a reporter, her beats have spanned the lifestyle spectrum; she's covered arts and culture for The Boston Globe, sex and relationships for Cosmopolitan, and food, climate, and farming for Ambrook Research.

Eleanor Sheehan is a former editorial assistant at PS.