Suad Aldarra

Powerful, fascinating and deeply moving - this book pushes aside our lazy images of human migration and refugees. I loved it.

Full of heart, honesty and hard-learnt wisdom, I Don't Want To Talk About Home addresses complex issues about identity, belonging and family. This book took me on a captivating journey across continents, history and culture. Suad Aldarra possesses a rare gift to when it comes to storytelling; I literally couldn't put this book down.

Jan Carson, author of The Raptures

Illuminating, vivid, and insightful, this is such a timely book.

This is a heart-wrenching memoir. Suad's courage, resilience and determination to find a place she can now call home, shines through. A beautiful book that I read in one sitting.

Sinead Moriarty, author of Yours, Mine, Ours

It is difficult to convey in a few words how much I loved this book. Full of heart-wrenching moments, it moved me to tears frequently, tears of both empathy and joy. 
A beautiful evocation of a lost home and a lost homeland, tender, heartfelt, elegiac, full of humorous and wry observations that create a vivid picture of a vibrant world little known, understood, or appreciated in the west, it gives identity, humanity, and dignity to all those too often dismissed as faceless and nameless 'refugees' or 'migrants.'

Arnold Thomas Fanning, author of Mind on Fire

I Don't Want to Talk About Home is a singular and moving portrait of the chaotic times in which we're living. Suad provides a unique view into how, religion, family, and love mix together into a modern story of losing and finding home in a world torn apart by war and conflict.

Aldarra writes about being a fire starter and her voice is a bright new spark. An insightful and intimate personal testimony of resisting limits, whether imposed by borders or beliefs, illuminating how our roots and identities are myriad.

Caelainn Hogan, author of Republic of Shame

An excellent and ultimately hopeful memoir, essential for anyone seeking insight into the world of an unwilling migrant.

Will prompt readers to reflect that 'this could be me' and in doing so, to hopefully examine their own privilege, their attitudes to and assumptions about migrants.

An instantly gripping memoir by a Syrian migrant in Ireland about displacement, suppressed trauma and, above all, love.

This is a stunning book ... full of insights into war, religion, humanity and the meaning of home, combined with beautiful writing and humour too. It is a love story as much as it is a story of migration and deserves as wide a readership as possible.

Sally Hayden, author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned

A migrant’s search for belonging

'I carry my troubled homeland within me; I hide it like a crime.' 
 
Growing up in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia, Suad Aldarra felt stifled. The daughter of Syrian parents, she railed against the extreme strictures placed on women in Saudi society at the time and the rising prejudice her family faced as migrants. When the opportunity arose to study software engineering at Damascus University, she jumped at the chance to move to the city she loved for a degree of freedom she'd never known. 
 
But when the war started, everything changed. Suddenly Suad and her new husband Housam were thrown into a world of relentless pressure, desperately looking for a way out. Suad's degree in engineering was the saving grace that allowed her to travel to Ireland on a working visa. Yet reaching safety came at a price... 
 
I Don't Want to Talk About Home is not a memoir about war and destruction. It's not about camps or boats. It's about the enduring love for a home that ceased to exist and how to build a life out of the rubble. With great warmth and insight, Suad writes about those left behind paper borders, the sacrifices made, and the parts of yourself you lose and find when integrating into a new world.

I Don't Want to Talk About Home

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Suad Aldarra

Praise for I Don't Want to Talk About Home

Powerful, fascinating and deeply moving - this book pushes aside our lazy images of human migration and refugees. I loved it.

Full of heart, honesty and hard-learnt wisdom, I Don't Want To Talk About Home addresses complex issues about identity, belonging and family. This book took me on a captivating journey across continents, hist ...

Illuminating, vivid, and insightful, this is such a timely book.

Powerful, fascinating and deeply moving - this book pushes aside our lazy images of human migration and refugees. I loved it.

Full of heart, honesty and hard-learnt wisdom, I Don't Want To Talk About Home addresses complex issues about identity, belonging and family. This book took me on a captivating journey across continents, hist ...

Illuminating, vivid, and insightful, this is such a timely book.

Powerful, fascinating and deeply moving - this book pushes aside our lazy images of human migration and refugees. I loved it.

Full of heart, honesty and hard-learnt wisdom, I Don't Want To Talk About Home addresses complex issues about identity, belonging and family. This book took me on a captivating journey across continents, hist ...

Illuminating, vivid, and insightful, this is such a timely book.

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter