Identity & Belonging

Explorations of self, belonging, and what it means to find your place.

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They Told Me Back Home Would Be Beautiful

They Told Me Back Home Would Be Beautiful

Raised in a Palestinian Christian family in San Francisco, Elena Dudum grows up surrounded by her father’s stories of a homeland her grandparents were forced to leave. For years, she resists this inheritance, trying to fit into American life and escape the weight of a history she struggles to claim. But a visit to Palestine brings the realities of occupation, displacement, and her family’s past into sharp focus. Weaving together family memories, archival discoveries, and political reflection, this intimate memoir traces one woman’s journey from estrangement to belonging—and her determination to reclaim a heritage that cannot be erased.

Palestine United States 2027

A Domestication

A Domestication

Camila Sosa Villada

A celebrated trans actress has everything she once dreamed of: a successful career, a wealthy lawyer husband, a beautiful home, and an adopted son she fiercely loves. Yet beneath the polished surface of domestic happiness, she feels trapped between the freedom she has fought for and the expectations of conventional family life. When a visit to her rural hometown forces her to confront the prejudice and pain of her past, the life she has carefully constructed begins to fracture. Provocative, darkly funny, and emotionally raw, A Domestication explores desire, gender, class, and the uneasy price of belonging.

A Dark and Narrow House

A Dark and Narrow House

When a mysterious, deadly plague sweeps across the world, a group of friends seeks refuge in a luxurious countryside mansion near the Pakistan–India border. But the haveli conceals an ancient darkness, and when they uncover a sealed chest hidden in a nearby cave, they unleash a primordial force that turns their sanctuary into a nightmare. Trapped inside the sprawling estate, the friends begin to unravel under the influence of its sinister magic, confronting buried traumas, personal demons, and the stories they tell themselves to survive. Drawing on South Asian and Middle Eastern folklore, this atmospheric dark fantasy explores memory, fear, and the terrifying power of the past.

India Pakistan 2027

A New Kind of Clean

A New Kind of Clean

Missy Djalo has spent years chasing her dream of becoming an actress, enduring failed auditions and struggling to escape the shadow of her fractured relationship with her Cameroonian mother. Broke and desperate, she receives an unexpected opportunity to audition for a mysterious company called Air Free. Welcomed into a beautiful house by a charismatic couple, Missy soon realises that the audition is unlike anything she has experienced before. As reality and fantasy begin to blur, she faces an unsettling question: how much of herself must she sacrifice to become the person she longs to be? A surreal, unsettling tale of ambition, memory, and identity, this philosophical horror explores the frightening possibility that achieving your dreams might mean losing yourself.

Eat Bitter, Anastasia

Eat Bitter, Anastasia

Soma Mei Sheng Frazier

Anastasia Ān Xiá Huang is in her twenties, living in Oakland’s Chinatown, and wondering whether the city she loves is also the place holding her back. Working at a modern art museum while her own artistic ambitions gather dust, she sees an unexpected inheritance—a rundown Victorian house left by her beloved uncle—as her chance to start over. But the house holds more than renovation projects: unsettling memories of her childhood begin resurfacing, forcing her to confront an absent father, a distant mother, and the family secrets that have shaped her. As Anastasia untangles the mysteries of her home and her past, she must decide what it means to belong somewhere and whether moving forward requires leaving something behind. A vivid, intimate novel about family, cultural identity, grief, and the complicated ties between people and places.

United States 2027

Swans

Claire Luchette

March 1970. With postal workers on strike, seventeen-year-old Sibby escapes a conversion camp and hits the road with a letter for the woman she loves. Along the way, she meets Lee, a woman transporting two swans to Ohio, and the pair begin delivering messages across the Midwest. As they invent stories about the people behind the letters, an unexpected love story begins to unfold between them. Funny, tender, and unconventional, Swans explores queer love, self-invention, and the freedom to imagine a different life.

United States 2027

Newcomers: Book Three

Newcomers: Book Three

Lojze Kovačič

The war is ending, but for Bubi and his family, peace brings a new set of uncertainties. In Ljubljana, the arrival of communist rule transforms everyday life, leaving people to navigate shifting loyalties, political suspicion, poverty, and the demands of a society being rebuilt from the ground up. Bubi fears that his family’s German-speaking background will make them targets under the new regime. As he witnesses show trials, homelessness, and the upheaval of postwar life, he begins to question the ideals shaping the world around him. At the same time, his interest in art and literature deepens, offering him a way to understand a society caught between collective ambition and individual freedom. In this final volume of his autobiographical masterpiece, Lojze Kovačič captures the contradictions of a country emerging from war, where hope and oppression coexist and the search for belonging remains unresolved.

Diaspora-ish: Notes on Identities, Unbelonging, & Solidarities

Diaspora-ish: Notes on Identities, Unbelonging, & Solidarities

What does it mean to belong when your identity crosses borders, cultures, and histories? Drawing on her own journey from Tanzania to Botswana and the United States, Gayatri Sethi challenges conventional ideas about nationality, race, ethnicity, and belonging. Blending personal reflections, poetry, academic insights, and interactive exercises, she explores how colonialism, racism, immigration, and inherited cultural expectations shape the ways people understand themselves and others. Moving beyond individual identity, Sethi asks how people from different backgrounds can build meaningful solidarities without erasing their differences. Thought-provoking and deeply personal, this book invites readers to question the boundaries that divide us and imagine a more inclusive vision of collective liberation.

Botswana Tanzania United States 2026

Farewell Tangier

Farewell Tangier

Salma El Moumni

Growing up in Tangier, Alia is constantly subjected to the unwanted attention of men who scrutinize her body, follow her, and invade her space. Desperate to understand the gaze that makes her feel both exposed and ashamed, she begins taking intimate photographs of herself in the privacy of her bedroom. When the images appear online without her consent, Alia faces the threat of punishment and is forced to flee to Lyon, France. But leaving Morocco cannot erase the shame, fear, and cultural expectations she carries with her. Intimate and unsettling, this powerful novel examines the policing of women’s bodies, sexual identity, and the complicated search for freedom between two cultures.

Brown Girls, Grown Up

Brown Girls, Grown Up

What happens when you grow up between cultures, build a life of your own, and still struggle to feel that you belong? In this intimate, witty collection of stories, Sima Qadeer explores the lives of South Asian women navigating marriage, motherhood, sexuality, faith, and the expectations of family and society. From a middle-aged woman who discovers the freedom of an unexpected friendship to a mother seeking to reconnect her children with their Muslim heritage, these characters confront the compromises they have made and the selves they have kept hidden. Tender, irreverent, and sharply observant, the collection explores the lifelong journey toward self-acceptance and the courage to belong without abandoning who you are.

Black Bag

What happens when an unemployed actor agrees to spend his university lectures zipped inside an oversized black leather bag? Hired by Professor Dr. Blend for an unusual psychological experiment, the nameless protagonist soon discovers that his strange new role has consequences far beyond the classroom. As a professor develops an unexpected fascination with the person hidden inside the bag and his childhood friend sees an opportunity to turn the experiment into a business, anonymity becomes both a refuge and a trap. Surreal, absurdly funny, and unexpectedly tender, Black Bag is a satirical campus novel exploring masculinity, identity, loneliness, and the struggle to connect in a world obsessed with visibility and self-promotion.

United Kingdom 2026

You Exist Too Much

You Exist Too Much

Caught between her Palestinian heritage, her queer identity, and an overwhelming hunger for love, an unnamed young woman struggles to find somewhere she truly belongs. When a painful breakup sends her spiralling, she enters an unconventional treatment centre for what is described as love addiction. Through fragmented memories spanning Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and the United States, she confronts her complicated relationship with her mother, the shame surrounding her sexuality, and the emotional wounds shaping her destructive romantic patterns. Intimate, provocative, and darkly funny, this novel explores the fine line between desire and obsession—and the difficult journey toward accepting yourself when you feel you are always too much for the world.

Palestine United States 2026

About this theme

Books: 196
Countries: 72

Countries with this theme

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Congo, Democratic Republic

Dominican Republic

North Macedonia