'[W]e are strong, we are beautiful and we should be proud of our culture, our stories, our languages.' – Danzal Baker (aka Baker Boy) Homeland Calling is a collection of poems created from hip-hop song lyrics that channel culture and challenge stereotypes. Written by First Nations youth from communities all around Australia, the powerful words display a maturity beyond their years. Edited by award-winning author and poet Ellen van Neerven, and brought to you by Desert Pea Media, the verses in this book are the result of young artists exploring their place in the world, expressing the future they want for themselves and their communities. These young people are the future, and their passion for their culture, languages and homelands is beyond inspiring. Check out many of the original songs and music videos on Spotify or YouTube. All royalties from the sale of the book will go towards Desert Pea Media's training and development programs in Indigenous communities. Artwork by Gamilaroi Yuwaalaraay artist Lakkari Pitt.
Over the last ten years, many commentators have tried to explain the bloody conflicts that tore Yugoslavia apart. But in all these attempts to make sense of the wars and ethnic violence, one crucial factor has been overlooked—the fundamental roles played by exile groups and émigré communities in fanning the flames of nationalism and territorial ambition. Based in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and South America, some groups helped provide the ideologies, the leadership, the money, and in many cases, the military hardware that fueled the violent conflicts. Atypical were the dissenting voices who drew upon their experiences in western democracies to stem the tide of war. In spite of the diasporas' power and influence, their story has never before been told, partly because it is so difficult, even dangerous to unravel. Paul Hockenos, a Berlin-based American journalist and political analyst, has traveled through several continents and interviewed scores of key figures, many of whom had never previously talked about their activities. In Homeland Calling, Hockenos investigates the borderless international networks that diaspora organizations rely on to export political agendas back to their native homelands—agendas that at times blatantly undermined the foreign policy objectives of their adopted countries.Hockenos tells an extraordinary story, with elements of farce as well as tragedy, a story of single-minded obsession and double-dealing, of high aspirations and low cunning. The figures he profiles include individuals as disparate as a Canadian pizza baker and an Albanian urologist who played instrumental roles in the conflicts, as well as other men and women who rose boldly to the occasion when their homelands called out for help.
This book makes the case for the independence of Kosova – the former province of 'old-Yugoslavia' and now temporarily a United Nations-led International protectorate – at a time in which international diplomacy is deeply involved in solving the contested issue of its 'Final Status'. The aim of the book is to counteract the anti-Albanian propaganda waged by some parties, but never to propose a counter-propaganda hostile to others or to the goals of a democratic Kosova.
Reversing his parents immigrant path, a young writer returns to India and discovers an old country making itself new. Anand Giridharadas sensed something was afoot as his plane prepared to land in Bombay. An elderly passenger looked at him and said, Were all trying to go that way, pointing to the rear. You, youre going this way. Giridharadas was...
Tired of the pace and noise of life near London and longing for a better place to raise their young children, Mary J. MacLeod and her husband encountered their dream while vacationing on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides. Enthralled by its windswept beauty, they soon were the proud owners of a near-derelict croft house—a farmer’s stone cottage—on “a small acre” of land. Mary assumed duties as the island’s district nurse. Call the Nurse is her account of the enchanted years she and her family spent there, coming to know its folk as both patients and friends. In anecdotes that are by turns funny, sad, moving, and tragic, she recalls them all, the crofters and their laird, the boatmen and tradesmen, young lovers and forbidding churchmen. Against the old-fashioned island culture and the grandeur of mountain and sea unfold indelible stories: a young woman carried through snow for airlift to the hospital; a rescue by boat; the marriage of a gentle giant and the island beauty; a ghostly encounter; the shocking discovery of a woman in chains; the flames of a heather fire at night; an unexploded bomb from World War II; and the joyful, tipsy celebration of a ceilidh. Gaelic fortitude meets a nurse’s compassion in these wonderful true stories from rural Scotland.
This "profound and provocative" work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Disgraced and American Dervish followsan immigrant father and his son as they search for belonging—in post-Trump America, and with each other (Kirkus Reviews). "Passionate, disturbing, unputdownable." —Salman Rushdie A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home. Ayad Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless lives and the gods of finance rule, where immigrants live in fear, and where the nation's unhealed wounds wreak havoc around the world. Akhtar attempts to make sense of it all through the lens of a story about one family, from a heartland town in America to palatial suites in Central Europe to guerrilla lookouts in the mountains of Afghanistan, and spares no one—least of all himself—in the process. One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2020 Finalist for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction A Best Book of 2020 * Washington Post * O Magazine * New York Times Book Review * Publishers Weekly
Homeland is the remarkable memoir of George Obama, President Obama’s Kenyan half brother, who found the inspiration to strive for his goal—to better the lives of his own people—in his elder brother’s example. In the spring of 2006, George met his older half brother, then–U.S. senator Barack Obama, for the second time—the first was when he was five. The father they shared was as elusive a figure for George as he had been for Barack; he died when George was six months old. George was raised by his mother and stepfather, a French aid worker, in a well-to-do suburb of Nairobi. He was a star pupil and rugby player at a top boarding school in the Mount Kenya foothills, but after his mother and stepfather separated when he was fifteen, he was deprived of the only father figure he had ever known. Now left angry, rebellious, and troubled, his life crashed and burned. George dropped out of school and started drinking and smoking hashish. From there it was only a short step to the gangland and a life of crime. He gravitated to Nairobi’s vast ghetto, and in the midst of its harsh existence discovered something wholly unexpected: a vibrant community and a special affinity with the slum kids, whom he helped survive amid grinding poverty and despair. When he was twenty, he and three fellow gangsters were arrested for a crime they did not commit and imprisoned for nine months in the hell of a Nairobi jail. In an extraordinary turn of events, George went on to represent himself and the other three at trial. The judge threw out the case, and George walked out of jail a changed man. After winning his freedom, George met his American brother for a second time, and was left with a strong impression that Barack would run for the American presidency. George was inspired by his older brother’s example to try to change the lives of his people, the ghetto-dwellers, for the better. Today, George chooses to live in the Nairobi ghetto, where he has set up his own community group and works with others to help the ghetto-dwellers, and especially the slum kids, overcome the challenges surrounding their lives. "My brother has risen to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world. Here in Kenya, my aim is to be a leader amongst the poorest people on earth—those who live in the slums." George Obama’s story describes the seminal influence Barack had on his future and reveals his own unique struggles with family, tribe, inheritance, and redemption.
Taking place in Istanbul, Salonika, Paris and Macedonia between 1908 and 1926, Farewell, My Beautiful Homeland is the story of lives that have been turned upside down by rebellion, revolution and war. It is the story of the Greek declaration of independence, of the Jews of Salonika being forced into exile, of the Bulgarians fighting for their independence and of the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the struggle to create a new nation out of its crumbling ruins. It is also the story of one man’s search for his true calling amidst the chaos of a turbulent historical era, the story of a man caught between his love for his country and his love for his woman. Farewell, My Beautiful Homeland is a story of unfulfilled dreams and the call of history. And underpinning it all is one fundamental question, one fundamental struggle: which takes precedence – the state or the people?
A moving story about a family's attempt to flee Haiti in a boat, and a young boy who bravely learns to navigate a new world through playing his drum. Henri and his parents leave their homeland, Haiti, after they receive an invitation from an uncle to come to New York City. Only able to afford a small, rickety boat, the family sets out in the middle of the night in search of a better life. Out at sea, Henri dreams of what life will be like across the great waters. Then the small boat overturns, and Henri is placed on top of the boat as his parents drift further out at sea. Overcome with grief, Henri retreats into himself and is no longer able to speak once he reaches land. Encouraged by his uncle and neighbor, Henri takes a bucket and plays on it like a drum. The drumming becomes a link to his past and a conduit for his emotions. Slowly, through his drumming and the kindness of his uncle and friend, Henri learns to navigate this new and foreign world without his parents. Calling the Water Drum is a tender and beautiful tribute to the resiliency of children and the human spirit.
