Return
with Kamal Al-Solaylee
Hosted by Nduka Otiono
Return is the book I didn’t realize I needed until it arrived on my desk during lockdown. The dispossessed make up a nation all their own. Al-Solaylee explores what it means to be one of its citizens, and how strongly the call of elsewhere can unsettle us. This is an urgent, thought-provoking read with much to say about our future.
Here is the direct link for this event on YouTube.
Join us for a conversation between Carleton University's Nduka Otiono and Toronto Book Award winner Kamal Al-Solaylee, in celebration of his acclaimed new book, Return: Why We Go Back to Where We Come From.
Drawing on extensive reporting from around the world and astute political analysis, Return illuminates a personal quest. Kamal Al-Solaylee, author of the bestselling and award-winning Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes and Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (for Everyone), yearns to return to his homeland of Yemen, now wracked by war, starvation and daily violence, to reconnect with his family. Yemen, as well as Egypt, another childhood home, call to him, even though he ran away from them in his youth and found peace and prosperity on the calm shores of Toronto.
Return is a chronicle of love and loss, of global reach and personal desires. It sets the narrative of going home against geopolitical forces that are likely to shape the rest of this century and beyond. It’s a book for anyone who has ever wondered what it would be like to return to their roots.
Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books.
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