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The Penguin Book of Migration Literature
The Penguin Book of Migration Literature: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns | Dohra Ahmad
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The first global anthology of migration literature featuring works spanning the eighteenth through twenty-first centuries, with a foreword by award-winning Haitian American novelist Edwidge Danticat A Penguin Classic Every year, three to four million people move to a new country. From war refugees to corporate expats, migrants constantly reshape their places of origin and arrival. Through an accessible anthology form organized in four parts (Departures, Arrivals, Generations, and Returns), this collection brings together the most compelling literary depictions of migration, conveying the intricacy of worldwide migration patterns, the diversity of immigrant experiences, and the commonalities among many of those diverse experiences. Ranging widely across the centuries, across every continent of the earth, and across multiple literary genres, The Penguin Book of Migration Literature gives its readers a unique and visceral understanding of our rapidly changing world, through the eyes of those at the center of that change. With thirty carefully selected poems, short stories, and excerpts spanning three hundred years and twenty-five countries, the collection brings together luminaries like Mohsin Hamid, Marjane Satrapi, and Salman Rushdie; emerging writers like Warsan Shire and Deepak Unnikrishnan; and others, like the Yemeni poet Abdullah Al-Baradouni, who have earned a wide following in their home countries but have been less recognized in the Anglophone world. Editor of the volume Dohra Ahmad provides a contextual introduction, notes, and suggestions for further exploration, while Haitian American novelist Edwidge Danticat contributes a foreword.
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Anna40
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The anthology of poems, short stories, excerpts of novels and memoirs explores what it‘s like to separate from your home country, your family, culture and language to emigrate to another country. Established authors like Salman Rushdie or Zadie Smith are brought together with - to me - less well known writers such as Eva Hoffman or Sefi Atta. I loved the excerpt from The Bridge of the Golden Horn by Emine Sevgi Özdamar.

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sarahljensen
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I've been reading a few of these a day for a bit now. Amazing and thought provoking pieces from talented writers

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balletbookworm
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A wonderfully solid and wide-ranging anthology of fiction, poetry, memoir, and personal essay on the subject of migration, whether voluntary or involuntary. The pieces are diverse geographically and chronologically (the earliest works are from eighteenth-century writers and enslaved persons Olaudah Equiano and Phyllis Wheatley and the more recent are migrations from the Middle East and mid-2000s green card worries).

balletbookworm My only complaint is that for excerpts of longer pieces (like from Zadie Smith‘s White Teeth) there isn‘t much context to orient the reader. The Additional Reading/Watching section at the back is excellent. 5y
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