TEXT I

“no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark.

you only run for the border
when you see the whole city
running as well”.

Warsan Shire, “Home”.
(SHIRE apud YOUSAFZAI, 2019, p. V)

“I have had the immense privilege of meeting many individuals who had to rebuild their lives, often in totally foreign places. People who have lost so much - including loved ones – and then had to start over. This means learning a new language, new culture, a new way of being. I share my story of being displaced not out of a desire to focus on my past, but to honour the people I've met and those I'll never meet.

I wrote this book because it seems that too many people don't understand that refugees are ordinary people. All that differentiates them is that they got caught in the middle of a conflict that forced them to leave their homes, their loved ones, and the only lives they had known. They risked so much along the way, and why? Because it is too often a choice between life and death.

And, as my family did a decade ago, they chose life”. (YOUSAFZAI, 2019, P. XI)

(Source: YOUSAFZAI, M. We are Displaced. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2019 – London)