Home Is Not a Country
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Narrated by:
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Safia Elhillo
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Christopher Myers
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By:
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Safia Elhillo
About this listen
Longlisted for the National Book Award
“Nothing short of magic.” (Elizabeth Acevedo, New York Times best-selling author of The Poet X)
From the acclaimed poet featured on Forbes Africa’s “30 Under 30” list, this powerful novel-in-verse captures one girl, caught between cultures, on an unexpected journey to face the ephemeral girl she might have been. Woven through with moments of lyrical beauty, this is a tender meditation on family, belonging, and home.
my mother meant to name me for her favorite flower
its sweetness garlands made for pretty girls
i imagine her yasmeen bright & alive
& i ache to have been born her instead
Nima wishes she were someone else. She doesn’t feel understood by her mother, who grew up in a different land. She doesn’t feel accepted in her suburban town; yet somehow, she isn't different enough to belong elsewhere. Her best friend, Haitham, is the only person with whom she can truly be herself. Until she can't, and suddenly her only refuge is gone
As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen - the name her parents meant to give her at birth - Yasmeen. But that other name, that other girl, might be more real than Nima knows. And the life Nima wishes were someone else's... is one she will need to fight for with a fierceness she never knew she possessed.
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Critic reviews
“Movingly unravels themes of belonging, Islamophobia, and the interlocking oppressions thrust upon immigrant women.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)
“[A] surreal crash-course in perspective, agency, and self-love.” (Booklist, starred review)
“Artfully profound and achingly beautiful, Elhillo’s verse aptly explores diasporic yearning for one’s home and a universal fascination with possibilities.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
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In Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Egan's highly acclaimed first novel, set in 1978, the political drama and familial tensions of the 1960s form a backdrop for the world of Phoebe O'Connor, age eighteen. Phoebe is obsessed with the memory and death of her sister Faith, a beautiful idealistic hippie who died in Italy in 1970. In order to find out the truth about Faith's life and death, Phoebe retraces her steps from San Francisco across Europe, a quest which yields both complex and disturbing revelations about family, love, and Faith's lost generation.
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Too bad zero was not a choice...
- By IVAL on 04-28-13
By: Jennifer Egan
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Secret Daughter
- By: Shilpi Somaya Gowda
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Debut novelist Shilpi Somaya Gowda pens this compelling tale about two families, worlds apart, linked by one Indian child. After giving birth to a girl for a second time, impoverished Kavita must give her up to an orphanage. The baby, named Asha, is adopted by an American doctor and raised in California. But once grown, Asha decides to return to India.
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A Must Read
- By Stephanie on 06-08-11
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Guapa
- By: Saleem Haddad
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Rasa spends his days translating for Western journalists and pining for the nights when he can sneak his lover, Taymour, into his room. One night Rasa's grandmother - the woman who raised him - catches them in bed together. The following day Rasa is consumed by the search for his best friend, Maj, a fiery activist and drag queen star of the underground bar Guapa, who has been arrested by the police.
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Guapa
- By Mah Maass on 08-25-16
By: Saleem Haddad
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Color Me In
- By: Natasha Díaz
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in an affluent suburb of New York City, 16-year-old Nevaeh Levitz never thought much about her biracial roots. When her Black mom and Jewish dad split up, she relocates to her mom's family home in Harlem and is forced to confront her identity for the first time. Nevaeh wants to get to know her extended family, but because she inadvertently passes as white, her cousin thinks she's too privileged, pampered, and selfish to relate to the injustices African Americans face on a daily basis.
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Mixed feelings about this book
- By Rachel Kohlbrenner on 02-02-20
By: Natasha Díaz
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The Red Address Book
- By: Sofia Lundberg, Alice Menzies - translator
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
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The global fiction sensation - published in 32 countries around the world: Meet Doris, a 96-year-old woman living alone in her Stockholm apartment. She has few visitors, but her weekly Skype calls with Jenny - her American grandniece, and her only relative - give her great joy and remind her of her own youth. In writing down the stories of her colorful past - working as a maid in Sweden, modelling in Paris during the '30s, fleeing to Manhattan at the dawn of the Second World War - she may help Jenny, haunted by a difficult childhood, unlock the secrets of their family....
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narrator was overwrought
- By Janet L. Hamilton on 02-22-19
By: Sofia Lundberg, and others
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Speak No Evil
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- By: Uzodinma Iweala
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi, Julia Whelan
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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On the surface, Niru leads a charmed life. Raised by two attentive parents in Washington, DC, he's a top student and a track star at his prestigious private high school. Bound for Harvard in the fall, his prospects are bright. But Niru has a painful secret: He is queer - an abominable sin to his conservative Nigerian parents. No one knows except Meredith, his best friend, the daughter of prominent Washington insiders - and the one person who seems not to judge him.
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So incredibly sad
- By Amazon Kunde on 02-08-20
By: Uzodinma Iweala
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One Amazing Thing
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi, Soneela Nankani, Neil Shah
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for her short stories, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores themes of women, immigration, and her vibrant Indian culture to great effect. Divakaruni expands on these ideas in One Amazing Thing, a project long in the making and full of electric prose.
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An ok way to kill some time
- By R.Reader on 11-07-12
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The Kite Runner
- By: Khaled Hosseini
- Narrated by: Khaled Hosseini
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Why we think it’s a great listen: Never before has an author’s narration of his fiction been so important to fully grasping the book’s impact and global implications. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of its monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them.
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A Worhty Read
- By P. C..S. on 08-17-03
By: Khaled Hosseini
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Praise Song for the Butterflies
- A Novel
- By: Bernice L. McFadden
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Abeo Kata lives a comfortable, happy life in West Africa as the privileged nine-year-old daughter of a government employee and stay-at-home mother. But when the Katas' idyllic lifestyle takes a turn for the worse, Abeo's father, following his mother's advice, places the girl in a religious shrine, hoping that the sacrifice of his daughter will serve as atonement for the crimes of his ancestors. Unspeakable acts befall Abeo for the 15 years she is held in the shrine. When she is finally rescued, broken and battered, she must struggle to overcome her past.
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Searing!
- By Susie Bright on 09-05-18
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Black & White
- By: Dani Shapiro
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Clara Brodeur has spent her entire adult life pulling herself away from her famous mother, the renowned and controversial photographer Ruth Dunne, whose towering reputation rests on the unsettling nude portraits she took of her young daughter from the ages of three to 14. As Clara charts a path connecting her childhood with her adult life, Shapiro's novel weaves together past and present in images as stark and intense as the photographs that tore the Dunnes apart.
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It was okay
- By Lucy7 on 02-13-19
By: Dani Shapiro
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The Lost Girls
- A Novel
- By: Heather Young
- Narrated by: Alice Rosengard, Laurel Schroeder
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family - her father commits suicide, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine.
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Engaging story spanning three generations.
- By LilMissMolly on 09-23-16
By: Heather Young
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What listeners say about Home Is Not a Country
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rachel
- 09-16-22
Totally Worth a Listen and All the Awards!
Absolutely loved this book! Originally borrowed a copy from the library because the synopsis sounded interesting and I’ve been trying poetry out more this year. THIS IS MY KIND OF POETRY BOOK! After I finished I immediately bought my own copy. Can’t recommend giving this book a listen enough.
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- Nebila Abdulmelik
- 02-08-22
Such an incredible story
I wrote to my book club ladies to tell them about this story before I finished listening to it....it was that good. I smiled, I got emotional, I followed Nima on her journey through her mind and her worlds... such an incredible piece of work. I'm in love.
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- Sarah
- 01-29-22
Wow!!! What a compelling story!
This was a great read!
I think of it as an added bonus that we were able to hear it read in the voice of the author.
Wonderful story telling, I could see myself in this story. Highly recommend.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-21-21
Incredible
What a poignant book and such a beautiful reading of it. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to hear this story.
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