19 Books About Refugees That Everyone Should Read

"Afterland" ($11, originally $16)

"Afterland," which won the 2016 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, is the first book of poetry from Hmong-American author Mai Der Vang. In it, she tells a story of how her people fled Laos after Americans — who had employed them in the "Secret War" — had left them behind. (A story that might resonate with some Afghanis following the US retreat in 2021.) Vang's collection is both specific to the Hmong experience and familiar to refugees everywhere: "Once, I lived in the valley./ Then I moved to the tent of ghosts."