Eight Essential Migration Reads

In a time when immigrants and refugees are vilified in the news, and a month where the atrocities committed against ‘the other’ continue to escalate, there’s a mood of grief and difficulty around the topic of migration. An easy target for political rhetoric in our current toxic environment, it’s easy to forget the human stories behind a phenomenon that has been part of our world for many centuries. So we decided that there’s no better time to select a few books that showcase different aspects of the migrant experience, and broaden horizons. 

Julie Otsuka – The Buddha in the Attic (2011)

Approaching the history of migration via the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as ‘picture brides’ in the early twentieth century. In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces these extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat to their arrival in America and their tremulous first nights to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women to their struggles to master a new language and culture to their experiences as mothers and then as the second World War strikes. A memorable and canonical novel that is still relevant in surprising ways.  

Sunjeev Sahota – The Year of the Runaways (2015)

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Sunjeev Sahota’s brilliant novel follows the lives of three young men and one woman. In a dilapidated shared house in Sheffield, a former rickshaw driver, two middle-class boys whose families are sinking into financial ruin and the visa wife who lives across town from one of them all come together in unforeseeable ways. Unfolding over one shattering year in which the destinies of these four characters become irreversibly entwined, this is a book about the punishing realities of immigrant life, about Indian and English culture and about the costs of making a new life.

Viet Thanh Nguyen – The Refugees (2017)

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s story collection following his Pulitzer-winning novel The Sympathizer is set in the Vietnamese communities in California as well as in Vietnam. Avoiding sensationalism for insight, Nguyen showcases the unexpected tales of various refugees and is a powerful testament to the dreams, hardships and challenges of immigration. From a ghostwriter struggling with her own identity to a woman whose husband has dementia to the culture shock of a young Vietnamese man who ends up living with two gay men in San Francisco, these are memorable and powerful tales well worth checking out.  

Abdulrazak Gurnah – Gravel Heart (2017)

A powerful story of exile, migration, and betrayal from the 2021 Nobel winner, Gravel Heart is the story of Salim’s move to London in the 70s. Going from a complex family dynamic in Zanzibar to the biting cold and seething crowds of this hostile city. Struggling to find a foothold, and understand the darkness at the heart of his family, Salim must face devastating truths about love, sex, and power. Evoking the immigrant experience with unsentimental precision and profound understanding, this is one of Abdulrazak Gurnah's finest works.

Deepak Unnikrishnan – Temporary People (2017)

Exploring the stories behind the towering skylines of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, this book fictionalises the humanitarian crisis of the so-called “guest workers” of the Gulf. This stunning debut novel, which is closer to a collection of interlinked short stories, delves into the myths, struggles and histories of the labourers in the Gulf with brilliant invention and precision. With this polyphony of voices, Unnikrishnan maps a new, unruly global English and gives personhood back to the anonymous workers who are easily forgotten.

Ali Smith – Spring (2019)

This is the third instalment in Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet of novels, which examine the current state of Britain in a manner that feels urgent, deeply humane and essential. Smith brings her signature wit and wordplay to the moral questions of the present, while also reminding us of the grander sweep of history. Spring straddles the personal and the political while positioning its characters on the heels of deaths, deportations and upheaval. It is a kaleidoscopic novel of huge scope that, in keeping with the rest of the Seasonal set, creates its own universe of references and history, both fictional and real, colliding with the politics of the present and the challenges of 21st century immigration.

Valeria Luiselli – Lost Children Archive (2019)

An emotionally resonant, fiercely imaginative novel about a family whose road trip across America collides with an immigration crisis at the southwestern border, Luiselli’s book takes the family separation policy at the heart of America’s border cruelty as a trigger for engagement. Moving between voices, texts and images, Lost Children Archive asks how we document our experiences, how we remember the things that matter to us the most, and how we can understand justice and equality in a world like ours, all the while remaining empathetic and razor sharp.

Dina Nayeri – The Ungrateful Refugee (2019)

Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran with her mother and brother, and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned–refugee camp. Eventually, she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton. In this memoir that subverts the genre, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with those of other refugees and asylum seekers, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys. A couple falls in love over the phone, women gather to prepare the noodles that remind them of home, a translator attempts to help new arrivals present their stories to officials, and far more.Nothing here is flattened or simplistic. Nayeri offers a new understanding of refugee life, raising surprising and provocative questions for our age.