12 Canadian books to read for World Refugee Day
June 20 is World Refugee Day. The United Nations created this day to raise awareness about what refugees around the world are facing.
If you're looking for a book to help you understand what the refugee experience is like, check out one of these titles by Canadian writers.
The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse by Vinh Nguyen
In his memoir, The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse, Vinh Nguyen retraces his family's journey from post-war Vietnam to Canada — and how this moment in history resonates with experiences in the diaspora today.
The work is a genre-bending mix of real-life experiences, meticulous research and inventive history to explore the nature of family, immigration and identity.
Nguyen is a Toronto-based writer, editor and educator whose work has appeared in Brick, Literary Hub, The Malahat Review and more. The author spoke with CBC Books about how he wrote his memoir.
The Illegal by Lawrence Hill
The Illegal examines the plight of refugees who risk everything to start over in a country that doesn't want them. After his father is killed by a dictator's thugs, elite marathon runner Keita Ali flees his homeland and goes into hiding in a country known as Freedom State, where his presence is illegal and he must go underground to save his own life.
The Illegal won Canada Reads in 2016, when it was championed by Olympian Clara Hughes.
Lawrence Hill is the acclaimed author of novels such as The Book of Negroes, The Illegal, Some Great Thing and Any Known Blood and the memoir Black Berry, Sweet Juice. He also delivered the 2013 Massey Lectures, Blood: The Stuff of Life. The Book of Negroes won Canada Reads 2009 and was adapted into a six-part miniseries, which can be streamed on CBC Gem. Hill has also won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. He has a star on Canada's walk of fame and was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2015.
Annapurna's Bounty by Veena Gokhale
Delight your tastebuds and imagination in Annapurna's Bounty, a collection of Indian legends where food plays different roles in the lives of a diverse cast of characters — from kings and commoners to witches, goddesses, gurus, bandits, refugees and travelers. Each story is also paired with a vegetarian recipe from the four corners of India.
Veena Gokhale is a Montreal-based author. Her previous works include the fiction books Bombay Wali and Other Stories and Land for Fatimah. She has also worked in journalism, teaching, literary curation and the non-profit sector.
The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien
In The Book of Records, Lina grows up in "The Sea," a building that serves as a home for migrants from all over the world, while caring for her sick father. She forms friendships with her fascinating neighbours, including a Jewish scholar exiled for his radical views and a poet from the Tang Dynasty, whose stories captivate her. However, her seemingly perfect life takes a startling turn when her father reveals the true reason they came to live at "The Sea."
Madeleine Thien is a short story writer and novelist. She is the author of the novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award in 2016 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Thien's debut novel, Certainty, published in 2006, won the Amazon First Novel Award and was a Globe and Mail Best Book. Thien is also the author of Dogs at the Perimeter, which was a Globe and Mail Best Book, and the children's book The Chinese Violin. Her first work of fiction, Simple Recipes, won four awards in Canada and was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
Crooked Teeth by Danny Ramadan
Crooked Teeth is Danny Ramadan's memoir that refutes the oversimplified refugee narrative and transports readers on an epic and often fraught journey from Damascus to Cairo, Beirut and Vancouver. Told with nuance and fearless intimacy about being a queer Syrian-Canadian, Crooked Teeth revisits parts of Ramadan's past he'd rather forget.
Ramadan is a Vancouver-based Syrian-Canadian author and advocate. His debut novel The Clothesline Swing was longlisted for Canada Reads in 2018 and his second novel The Foghorn Echoes won a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.
Dear Da-Lê by Anh Duong
Written for his daughter, Anh Duong tells his previously untold story as a child during the Vietnam War and a refugee in Iran in the late 1970s. Compelled by his daughter's involvement in student protests, in Dear Da-Lê, he decides that it's finally time to share his journey to ending up in Canada in 1980.
Duong is a Calgary-based writer. He was born in Thua-Thien Hue, Vietnam and moved to Iran in the 1970s. He worked for years as an engineer in the petroleum industry after his 1980 arrival to Canada.
As Good a Place as Any by Rebecca Papucaru
In the novel As Good a Place as Any, Paulina and her brother Ernesto flee Chile's violent 1973 coup and seek refuge in Toronto. Paulina is on her way to achieving her dreams of becoming a star when she lands a big role, but when she participates in an underground abortion-rights movement, she's forced to choose between her personal ambitions and her newfound purpose.
Rebecca Papucaru is a Montreal-based writer. Her poetry collection The Panic Room won the 2018 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Poetry, was a finalist for the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and longlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her work has appeared in the Grain, The Dalhousie Review and The New Quarterly, among others. Her novella Yentas won The Malahat Review's 2020 Novella Prize. As Good a Place as Any is her debut novel.
Landbridge by Y-Dang Troeung
In her memoir Landbridge: Life in Fragments, Y-Dang Troeung wrote about the transactional relationship host countries have with the refugees they admit. Troeung herself was only one-year-old when she came to Canada from Cambodia fleeing Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime. The book also explores the complex ethnic, regional and national identities of family legacies and how they are passed down to the next generation.
Troeung was a researcher, writer and assistant professor of English at the University of British Columbia. Her first book, Refugee Lifeworlds: The Afterlife of the Cold War in Cambodia, explored the enduring impact of war, genocide and displacement. She died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 42 in 2022.
What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad
What Strange Paradise is a novel that tells the story of a global refugee crisis through the eyes of a child. Nine-year-old Amir is the only survivor from a ship full of refugees coming to a small island nation. He ends up with a teenage girl named Vanna, who lives on the island. Even though they don't share a common language or culture, Vanna becomes determined to keep Amir safe. What Strange Paradise tells both their stories and how they each reached this moment, while asking the questions, "How did we get here?" and "What are we going to do about it?"
Omar El Akkad is a Canadian journalist and author who currently lives in Portland. He is also the author of the novel American War, which was defended on Canada Reads 2018 by actor Tahmoh Penikett.
The Boat People by Sharon Bala
In this debut novel, a ship carrying 500 Tamil refugees reaches the shores of British Columbia. A man named Mahindan and his six-year-old son have survived a harrowing journey and hope to start a new life in Canada. But Mahindan is immediately taken to a detention facility and left to wait there as politicians, journalists and the public squabble over his fate and those who travelled alongside him.
The Boat People was defended by Mozhdah Jamalzadah on Canada Reads 2018. It won the 2019 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and 2020 Newfoundland & Labrador Book Award.
Sharon Bala is a novelist and short story writer. Born in Dubai, she currently lives in St. John's. The Boat People is her first novel. She won the Journey Prize for best short story published in a literary magazine in 2017.
Born to Walk by Alpha Nkuranga
Born to Walk is a memoir that details Alpha Nkuranga's story of resistance and survival. When she was eight, she and her younger brother ran from her grandparents' home in Rwanda in the midst of the civil war. They hid in a swamp until it was safe to leave and ended up joining a group of refugees fleeing to Tanzania. More than ten years later, Nkuranga moved to Canada and now works with women and children who face abuse and homelessness.
Nkuranga works for Women's Crisis Services in Kitchener, Ont. She fled Rwanda as an eight-year-old and lived in refugee camps in Tanzania and Uganda before arriving in Canada in 2010.
We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib
Samra Habib's memoir We Have Always Been Here is an exploration of the ways we disguise and minimize ourselves for the sake of survival. As a child, Habib hid her faith from Islamic extremists in Pakistan and later, as a refugee in Canada, endured racist bullying and the threat of an arranged marriage. In travelling the world and exploring art and sexuality, Habib searches for the truth of her identity.
We Have Always Been Here will be defended by Amanda Brugel on Canada Reads 2020.
Habib is a journalist, photographer and activist based in Toronto. CBC Books named Habib a writer to watch in 2019. We Have Always Been Here is her first book.
