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Nation of Strangers

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Nation of Strangers

By: Ece Temelkuran
Narrated by: Ece Temelkuran
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Dear stranger. Are you home? Do you feel at home? For how much longer?

Across the world the number of refugees and exiles, the dispossessed and displaced, the politically homeless and the economically excluded is growing. In the decade since she left her own home, Ece Temelkuran has been a political Cassandra, warning those convinced it couldn’t happen in their country that fascism is coming.

Now, as oppression spreads and temperatures rise – as we face competing crises and learn, again and again, that no institution is so concrete it can’t turn to dust, and no home is too strong to be destroyed – she has written Nation of Strangers: a series of letters from one stranger to another.

Politically attuned and deeply personal, this extraordinary, heartening correspondence is a gift to treasure in uncertain times. As poetic as it is precise, it is a book for anyone who feels alienated by an ever-more monstrous world. It shows how, as we all become strangers, our home will depend on the strength we find with one another. Activism & Social Justice Emigration & Immigration Letters & Correspondence Memoirs, Diaries & Correspondence Social Sciences Heartfelt
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Critic reviews

A new book from Ece Temelkuran is a new way of understanding the world. She is lucid, honest and often wryly funny about where we are now, and who we are becoming. And Nation of Strangers is her most ambitious and dazzling book yet (BRIAN ENO)
One of the finest books I've ever read on what it means to be cast out, to be unhomed. Ece Temelkuran is a brilliant thinker, and her work here is as conceptually illuminating as it is beautifully written (OMAR EL AKKAD)
Nation of Strangers is perhaps the most urgent and necessary book of our times, for our times. To read it is "to stiffen the sinews" (MICHAEL MORPURGO)
Ece Temelkuran, with her beautiful, elegiac new book on becoming "unhomed", is in serious danger of becoming the new Hannah Arendt (YANIS VAROUFAKIS)
Crackling with intelligence, insight and generosity (KAMILA SHAMSIE)
Essential reading for this month, this year, this era (CAROLINE SANDERSON, , 'Non-Fiction Book of the Month')
Nation of Strangers is essential reading - a bold reminder, a stern warning, a soft prayer and courageous song. Without a doubt, it is my number one favourite book of these times . . . a critically honest observation of us, of you and me in the here and now, our fragile notion of home, the homes we leave behind, the home we carry with us. I feel like she is writing to me personally, teaching me to be stronger and much more resilient (SALENA GODDEN)
Reading Ece Temelkuran's book Nation of Strangers was like hearing from a friend. I felt deeply comforted by her writing and her extraordinary ability to tap into the innate desire in all of us to have somewhere to call home (DENISE GOUGH)
Powerful, poetic and deeply personal, Nation of Strangers is both a brilliant exploration of the meaning of home and an urgent call for a new politics of togetherness. An unforgettable book that offers vital imaginative vision and vocabulary to traverse the turbulence of our times (ROMAN KRZNARIC)
Homelessness, both literal and spiritual, is increasingly the contemporary human condition, and in Nation of Strangers, Ece Temelkuran gives it the sustained and close attention it deserves. She not only elegantly and movingly diagnoses our shared plight; she describes the wise and viable solutions we so desperately need. No one baffled and estranged by our age's relentless shocks can afford to miss this book (PANKAJ MISHRA)
All stars
Most relevant
Found this book through The clearing podcast. Made me feel so less alone whilst I'm struggling with chronic illness and social exclusion

raw @ honest

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It took Ece 3 years to write this book, and me a month to finish listening from her own voice, accompanied with kilos of sweet potatoes being peeled (that's how I cope with my strong emotions), multiple make-up redos (how I struggle with tears) and many hours of peaceful computer games (to ease down the realities of life). Since she stopped writing novels, I always wanted her to go back to literature in the sense of a more Ece kinda approach to life. This book, completely defeated all my arguments on this, and took its place at top 3 of my Ece shelf, if not my overall library. I cannot summarize or explain the content any better than the title itself as a member of the nation of strangers for 20 years - nearly doubling Ece's misery (I am sure she will hate this word but well...) as well as starting to experience this way sooner than her at my mid 20s. Probably after having the published book in my hands, I will have many lines to share and add my uncalled commentary. But until then, all I can say is read with caution and enough time to contemplate about life, preferably not while driving if you happen to listen.

You will love it if you are a stranger.

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Great empathic and insightful, disturbing and challenging book! Opening eyes. The need for connecting personally and as a coalition against fascism.

Great empathic and insightful, disturbing and challenging book!

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