100 Books Like Fear in Bongoland

We can learn a lot about urban refugees from works of fiction. This short story is a tragic tale of Boniface Louis R. Kuseremane, a Rwandese prince, who finds himself in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

The story does well to remind us that refugees come from all backgrounds and how quickly support and wealth can disappear. Nairobi initially exists as a stop-off on route to continued comforts in Europe, but the protagonist finds himself trapped on a downward spiral as his social and material privileges slip away.

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor is most well known for her beautifully written novels Dust and The Dragonfly Sea, but long before these, her short story Weight of Whispers won the prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing.

A rich historical account of the experiences of Afghans living in urban Pakistan from the 1970s to the post-2001 ‘War on Terror’ period, this book provides a fascinating discussion of urban informality, what it means to belong, the role of citizenship, and the engagement and absence of the state in cities.

The book utilises ethnographic observations and interviews but also valuable archival data–raising important considerations of who gets remembered, as well as underscoring that urban refugees are not a new phenomenon. 

This book is a fascinating and well-written book on ‘gender refugees’ –people who make their claim for asylum based on their gender identity.

The book illuminates these refugees’ unique and challenging journeys as gender refugees, from their reasons for leaving their countries, the various violences in the asylum system, the South Africa they imagined, and the South Africa they experienced.

The book de facto deals with urban refugees. South Africa does not practice a system of encampment, while nearly all the participants in the research reside in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

This book is set in the small city of Ithaca in Upstate New York and provides an engaging account of people living there before and during the anti-migrant policies of Donald Trump’s Presidency.

Despite the overwhelming majority of refugees being hosted in the Global South, some do receive third-country resettlement to countries such as the United States. As Hartman’s book shows us, challenges and issues don’t stop upon resettlement, and often, resettled refugees face new obstacles.

The book is also an important reminder that while most studies of urban refugees tend to focus on mega- and other large cities like Istanbul, Bangkok, and Beirut, smaller urban areas–like Ithaca, with a population of little over 30,000–are also key sites of refuge.

This masterpiece will compel anyone who's not yet a lover of historical fiction with elements of fantasy to jump the broom into Remembrance, a voodoo-induced world refuge for 18th and 19th century enslaved people. The lives of a trio of women separated by place and time are deftly braided by this debut author. Evocative escapism at its best.

This is one of my all-time favorite children’s WW2 books set on America’s home front. The year is 1944, and Lily is off to spend another magical summer in Rockaway. The beach and the boardwalk, the swimming and fishing, and her friend Margaret are waiting. But the summer soon begins to fall apart. Margaret and her family are leaving for a town in Michigan where her father has a job in a wartime factory. And her own father reveals that he is about to work as an engineer for the army somewhere in Europe.

Loneliness sets in until Lily meets an orphaned boy named Albert, a Hungarian refugee who is spending the summer with relatives. Albert’s parents have been taken by the Nazis, and his sister, Ruth, is left behind in France. Lily and Albert have much to learn from each other, and much to share. This book tells a… show more.

I loved the language in this novel-in-verse and the valuable insights from an “outsider” experiencing American culture.

As a refugee fleeing war-torn Syria, Jude, the main character, finds one of the only places she feels safe and accepted is in her class for English learners. The example of her teacher, Mrs. Ravenswood, shows how sometimes one person can’t change the world, but they might change the world for one person. It made me think about how small things I do and say impact people around me. 

This quiet, unsettling book was written over a decade ago but still feels so topical and urgent that it might have been published today. In a German city, dozens of African migrants living on the street stage a hunger strike for the right to work. Richard, a widowed academic in bored retirement goes to meet them, and gets involved.

I recalled my own impulses to activism and charity as a kid and now— my curiosity to understand other people's plight, compulsion to help, and perhaps guilt that, in comparison, my own problems are negligible.

Richard is motivated by morality, a search for meaning, and a desire for connection and shared action. I've been there, too, and like him, I've learned that friendships can sour and good intentions go wrong.

This wordless picture book uses gorgeous collage art to soften the frightening story of a wartime escape from Vietnam. The use of ants as a refugee metaphor, and the intertwined wordless stories of ants with a fleeing human family, may make the story a bit complex for very young readers. But the lack of text, in this case, makes it a perfect read-together book and conversation starter. It is a story of hope, courage, and kindness, which are key pillars for refugees to survive and thrive. Separately, we all tend to focus on the biggest, most current, refugee crises (and there are many!). Yet children should also hear refugee stories from around the world and through history. What do these journeys have in common? What makes them unique? What can we learn?

Nine-year-old Ahmet, a Syrian refugee, has arrived in Mrs. Khan’s classroom after fleeing the horrors of war. One of the things that is so striking about this book is how the children in the story have far more understanding than most adults. It is both funny and heartfelt and is a masterclass in teaching empathy – for the young and the old.