Elsewhere, Home - by Leila Aboulela (Paperback)

About the Book

The first new collection of stories from the New York Times Notable author since winning the Caine Prize, Elsewhere, Home offers a rich tableau of life as an immigrant abroad, attempting to navigate the conflicts of assimilation and difference in an unfamiliar world.

Book Synopsis

The first new collection of stories from the New York Times Notable author since winning the Caine Prize, Elsewhere, Home offers a rich tableau of life as an immigrant abroad, attempting to navigate the conflicts of assimilation and difference in an unfamiliar world.

Review Quotes

Praise for Elsewhere, Home

Winner of the 2018 Saltire Literary Award

"If literary realism attempts to hold a mirror to the world, Leila Aboulela's Elsewhere, Home is an especially vivid reflection . . . Hers is the first collection I've read since James Joyce's Dubliners that reminded me of the life-changing power of furiously honest realism."-New York Times Book Review

"From the title on, Leila Aboulela's sixth book asks readers to consider what it means to have a home, to leave a home behind, and to make a new one. . . . Aboulela excels at giving equal weight not only to the high-stakes drama of cultural differences, but also more focused concepts, like a schoolgirl's nearsightedness in "Farida's Eyes," or a restaurant worker's inability to cook rice . . . In the details, we see that these themes aren't about being Sudanese or British specifically, but the simultaneous sense of belonging and alienation familiar to us all."-BookBrowse

"[B]eautiful and full of easy dialog and insight . . . Though she tackles many heavier, broader themes in her writing, Aboulela excels most at portraying the nuances of day-to-day life and the pains of missing and returning home."-Bustle

"Connected by a consistent authenticity, these stories display a virtuosity in building on the most relatable emotional hooks: prewedding nerves, pregnancy stress, or economic anxiety. Aboulela's remarkable collection offers a strong and sympathetic illumination of the social and spiritual price that migration demands even when it does deliver on an economic promise."-Booklist (starred review)

"Each story is earnest, engrossing, holding surprising depth for tales so compact. Aboulela confronts and dissects Western and African stereotypes of Islam, Muslims, and immigrants, and beautifully renders the more universal challenge of cultural homelessness."-Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

"A yearning for home tugs at the souls of Aboulela's characters in this beautiful and desolate collection...There is so much quiet brilliance [here]."-Guardian

"A lovely collection of short stories about love, loneliness and spirituality."-Nadiya Hussein, Good Housekeeping

"Elsewhere, Home is a rich and poignant reflection of a Britain built as ever from multiple perspectives and starting points...These beautifully focused tales of Khartoum, Edinburgh, London, Cairo and beyond are a delight."-A.L. Kennedy

"[Aboulela] is one of the best short story writers alive. Publishing her at Granta Magazine and Freeman's has been one of the highlights of my life as an editor."-John Freeman

"Exquisite fiction. There are gems here, elegantly cut, polished and framed. Luminous."-Fadia Faqir

"Full of elegance, tenderness and the small vulnerabilities that make up our lives."-Roma Tearne

Praise for The Kindness of Enemies

"Aboulela has written a book for grownups...that speaks more forcefully than a thousand opinion pieces...timeless."-Anthony Marra, San Francisco Chronicle

"An absorbing novel...reminds us of the complexity of the web woven by those threads of faith, nationality, politics and history."-New York Times Book Review

"A rich, multilayered story...compelling."-The Washington Post

"Radiant with historical detail and vivid descriptions...an invitation to see identity as more variegated than the either/or distillations of the Global War on Terror."-Los Angeles Review of Books

About the Author

LEILA ABOULELA is the first ever winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing. Her novels include The Kindness of Enemies, The Translator (longlisted for the Orange Prize), Minaret and Lyrics Alley, which was Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards. Her work has been translated into fifteen languages. She grew up in Khartoum, Sudan, and now lives in Aberdeen, Scotland.