100 Books Like House of Kwa

Anne Berest embarks on a detective journey after an anonymous postcard arrives at her family home listing the names of her maternal great-grandparents, Ephraïm and Emma, and their children, Noémie and Jacques—all killed at Auschwitz. Anne and her mother are determined to find out who sent the postcard and why. For sixteen years, Anne pursues her quest to uncover the sender’s identity and her family’s hidden past while grappling with her own identity—what it means to be Jewish and how she embodies the legacy of her murdered family members. 

Although Berest wrote her family’s Holocaust history as a novel, she describes it as a ‘true novel.’ She changed the name of the village where family members were arrested in order to protect the people living there now. She also changed the names of perpetrators to protect descendants who did not get to choose their parents but had to… show more.

Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction, this magnificent book begins as a memoir with Flannagan visiting the site of the POW camp in Japan where his father was subjected to slave labor during WWII, was starved, and faced certain death, saved only by the atomic bomb dropping on nearby Hiroshima. Throughout this book, Flanagan grapples with the fact he exists only because of this tragedy (as I grapple in Irena’s Gift with the fact I exist only because a Nazi SS officer who tortured and killed women saved my mother.)  

Often, in families of war survivors, one son or daughter becomes curious—obsessed even—with how their parent survived, perhaps not realizing they are also seeking to understand their own identity given they inherited their parent’s trauma. Frustrated by a Japanese museum’s omission of his father’s slave labor experience, Flanagan poses his dilemma: “Sometimes I wonder… show more.

Given the heroic women I portray in Irena’s Gift, I am naturally drawn to stories of resilient women who challenge conventions to reinvent themselves and thrive in new countries. In Kantika, through exquisite prose, Elizabeth Graver transports readers from the vibrant streets of Constantinople to the bustling avenues of Barcelona–where characters based on her own Sephardic family are exiled after losing everything–to Havana and then New York. 

Its glorious cover is an apt description of the kaleidoscope of cultures and places this story allows us to inhabit. Graver's lyrical writing breathes life into each city as if it were a character. Each location bursts with movement and color, such as this description of 1907 Constantinople: “In wordless tunes, nonsense sounds and ballads, in Ladino, French and bits of Turkish, Hebrew, Greek, she sings, as on the street the lemon man sings lemons, the Bulgarian sings pudding, the vegetable… show more.

As a journalist, teacher and Education Director for Israel’s Kids4Peace (now part of Seeds of Peace), Ittay Flescher has spent years bringing together youth across conflict lines. In this vital book for our times, he shows how recognizing our shared humanity can cultivate dialogue and trust, dismantle stereotypes, counter dehumanization, and foster empathy—demonstrating that in both groups, there are partners for peace. Flescher highlights young voices challenging the one-sided narratives they have inherited, and shows how, “two rooted and indigenous national identities” can engage in difficult conversations about historical events, identity, and coexistence.

Given how war has affected my own family, what resonated most is Flescher’s ability to humanize conflict. He reminds us that behind every headline are innocent mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons who deserve our compassion. He has learned that people with extreme opinions often carry deep traumas that shaped their beliefs: “I can understand someone’s pain and… show more.

While doing research into Ruby’s backstory, I discovered this book. It reads like a novel but tells the stories of four real women who married American servicemen and left war-torn Britain for the more lavish lifestyle available to Americans in the 50s. But the arduous journey by sea, the intrusive and humiliating health examinations waiting on the other side, and the strangeness of a strange land provided challenges and difficulties. Each woman’s experience is different, but each is determined not to give up on their dream. An epilogue tells of how their marriages and lives worked out. Fascinating. 

Bridging the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a sweeping, transnational history, Alien Nation provides a compelling account of Chinese migration to the Americas from the 1840s through World War II.

In vivid prose, Young tells the story of how Chinese laborers mined gold, built railroads, and harvested sugar cane; how anti-Chinese restrictionists demonized these workers as “coolies”; and how nationalist movements throughout the Americas enflamed anti-Chinese sentiment.

Alien Nation explains how different national governments borrowed from one other in crafting policies regulating and controlling Chinese immigration, but also how these policies clashed and diverged. Within this transnational framework, Elliott Young recovers the agency of Chinese migrants, facing exclusion, deportation, and segregation, who circumvented government policies to form vibrant communities that transcended national borders.

This book reveals a fascinating picture of mothers from China traveling to the US to give birth on American soil.

Factory worker Scarlett is one such mother, and her journey to safety, friendship, motherhood, and love, told with Hua’s impeccable gift for storytelling, is an adventure you will cheer for. 

The recent arrival of unaccompanied minors at US ports of entry is not a new phenomenon. In this book, Anita Casavantes Bradford examines the history of child migration to the United States since World War II.

Readers learn about the foreign policy, domestic, and humanitarian concerns that shaped U.S. policies towards unaccompanied minors; the governmental and nongovernmental actors who advocated on children’s behalf; and the emerging notions of children’s rights in U.S. society that contributed to the often-heated debates on immigration policy. She provides a much-needed historical context for understanding the challenges child migration poses today.

This is another book that addresses Europe’s 2015-2016 “refugee crisis.” While Miliband also offers some insights into the experience of refugees seeking asylum in Europe, the focus of his book is on how current European policy betrays the values at the core of Europe’s recent history and self-understanding. Miliband weaves analysis of the predicament of mostly Middle Eastern and African refugees attempting to reach Europe through irregular Mediterranean routes with reflection on his parents’ experience as Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany and seeking protection in England in the 1940s. The strength of Rescue is that it provides the reader with multiple frames of reference for thinking about what ought to be Europe’s response toward contemporary refugees, a significant number of whom are Muslims from the Middle East. 

I first met Peter here in Chapel Hill, and we became fast friends. A Holocaust survivor from Prague, Peter often spoke to my classes about his experiences. What made his talks so powerful was his ability to remember what it was like to be an eight-year-old boy living in a city under Nazi occupation, and to tell a story that is humbling, moving, and real. Never have I seen a speaker connect better with young people. Peter first became inspired to begin telling his story to students and others after confronting a Holocaust denier, and his many presentations laid the foundation for this book. Part history, part memoir, A Boy’s Journey is also a story about family and the need for tolerance and empathy in our world today.