Home Is Not a Country by Elhillo, Safia

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

"Nothing short of magic." --Elizabeth Acevedo, New York Times bestselling author of The Poet X

From the acclaimed poet featured on Forbes Africa's "30 Under 30" list, this powerful novel-in-verse captures one girl, caught between cultures, on an unexpected journey to face the ephemeral girl she might have been. Woven through with moments of lyrical beauty, this is a tender meditation on family, belonging, and home.

my mother meant to name me for her favorite flower
its sweetness garlands made for pretty girls
i imagine her yasmeen bright & alive
& i ache to have been born her instead


Nima wishes she were someone else. She doesn't feel understood by her mother, who grew up in a different land. She doesn't feel accepted in her suburban town; yet somehow, she isn't different enough to belong elsewhere. Her best friend, Haitham, is the only person with whom she can truly be herself. Until she can't, and suddenly her only refuge is gone.

As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen--the name her parents meant to give her at birth--Yasmeen. But that other name, that other girl, might be more real than Nima knows. And the life Nima wishes were someone else's. . . is one she will need to fight for with a fierceness she never knew she possessed.


Author: Safia Elhillo
Publisher: Make Me a World
Published: 03/02/2021
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.70w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780593177051
Age Range: 13-17
Award: National Book Awards - Nominee
Award: Coretta Scott King Award - Honor Book

Review Citation(s):
School Library Journal 01/01/2021 pg. 71
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/2021
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 03/01/2021
Publishers Weekly 03/01/2021
Booklist 03/01/2021 pg. 39
Shelf Awareness 03/23/2021
Horn Book Magazine 07/01/2021 pg. 110
Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2021 - Superior,Well Above Average

About the Author
Safia Elhillo is the author of the poetry collection The January Children, which received the the 2016 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets and a 2018 Arab American Book Award.

Sudanese by way of Washington, DC, she holds an MFA from The New School, a Cave Canem Fellowship, and a 2018 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Safia is a Pushcart Prize nominee, co-winner of the 2015 Brunel International African Poetry Prize, and listed in Forbes Africa's 2018 "30 Under 30." She is a 2019-2021 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.