by Leanne Francis

From one of Forbes Africa’s 30 under 30 comes a lyrical love letter to the children of the diaspora, teaching us that there are many ways to find home. Home is not a country: it exists within all of us and is about embracing our most authentic selves, the self that does not always fit into the right box.

Home is Not a Country is a story of time travel, truth-telling, and embracing our most authentic selves, the self that does not always fit into the right box. Published by Penguin imprint Make Me a World and authored by the award-winning Safia Elhillo, who in 2018 was listed in Forbes 30 Under 30, this captivating novel-in-verse about belonging and identity shows us the world through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old girl.

Nima, the Muslim American daughter of a widowed mother, tries to navigate life in her post-9/11 suburban town alongside her only friend, Haitham. Split into four parts, the novel begins in Nima’s home where we meet her mother and childhood best friend. When school begins, Nima notices a shift in her friendship with Haitham, who is like a brother to her. As he becomes more popular, she becomes more reclusive. Nima finds herself longing to fit in, even if that means becoming someone else and having someone else’s life. She remembers how her parents initially wanted to name her Yasmeen, after her mother’s favourite flower the jasmine. In her mind, Yasmeen is “bright & alive / mouth full & dripping with language.” Little does Nima know, the fictional girl she dreams of becoming may be more real than she imagined, forcing her to fight for her life with a ferocity she never knew she had. When Yasmeen appears before Nima, solid and real, they travel back in time together.

Home is Not a Country reminds us of what it feels like to be young and misunderstood. It’s thought-provoking, emotive, and perfectly captures the stark changes wrought by adolescence. We, as readers, witness the veil of naivety lifted before our very eyes. We watch Nima war with herself over who she’d rather be, siding with the smarter, more attractive version of herself. Nima’s deepest insecurities manifest in the form of Yasmeen, her parallel self. In reading, we slowly learn to differentiate between memory and reality, past and present. It’s the form of the verse novel that allows this witnessing because poetry makes time feel physically disrupted. As Nima realises how her memories of childhood have been corrupted over time, Elhillo explores how memories aren’t always an honest reflection of the past and its people, how time may not be as linear as we think. Home is Not A Country pulls us through time and forces us to grapple with the possibility of our alternate selves existing, or waiting to exist, at the same time as us.

Home is Not A Country pulls us through time and forces us to grapple with the possibility of our alternate selves existing, or waiting to exist, at the same time as us.

Having grown up as an immigrant daughter in post-9/11 America, Nima’s feelings of shame and anger around identity will be familiar to many. She watches her mother, who once told her to never be “ashamed of who we are” stop wearing her headscarf. She is embarrassed by the scent of her mother’s food—“okra & lamb & rice”—and discards it before anyone at school knows it is hers, replacing it with “plasticky American cheese” sandwiches. It is because she’s tormented at school and cast out by society that she begins to imagine another life for herself, a life back home as the daughter her mother deserves. Nima does not feel safe in her American home and by physically removing herself from her body and entering a dream-like space, she escapes her so-called home for a little while. We witness Nima suffer racial macro-aggressions on various occasions.

Though we do not learn where Nima and her family are originally from, Elhillo leaves small hints that suggest she may be Sudanese. At times, she feels as though she has two “ghost parents” and struggles throughout the novel to mend the relationship with her mother. She also finds it difficult to accept the “father-sized ache” in her home, recognising his absence in the “worry lines stamped into her [mother’s] brow.” Nima wonders who she could have been had they never left her mother’s home country. Through photographs, Arabic pop music, and dance, she finds ways to tie herself back to her homeland. People from the diaspora will know this feeling well: to have part of yourself rooted elsewhere, far from reach.

Home is Not a Country is a story about adolescence, friendship, and finding ways to belong in a country that does not want you. It is also a story about magic and our proximity to other worlds, other selves. Through the young eyes of Nima, we experience the passing of time and the blessing of it. We relive our own teenage years—the confusion, anger, exhaustion—and feel empowered to fight for our own futures. Here is a lyrical love letter to the children of the diaspora, teaching us that there are other ways to find home. Home is not a country: it exists within all of us.

By Leanne Francis

LEANNE FRANCIS (she/her) is an English Literature and Creative Writing graduate from North East England. Being of South African and St Helenian descent, she is keen to pursue a career in publishing and poetry whilst pushing for representation across both. Find her at @leannekfr on Twitter or @leannekerenza on Instagram.

SAFIA ELHILLO is the author of The January Children, which received the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets and an Arab American Book Award, Girls That Never Die, and the novel in verse Home Is Not A Country. Safia is a Pushcart Prize nominee (receiving a special mention for the 2016 Pushcart Prize), co-winner of the 2015 Brunel International African Poetry Prize, and listed in Forbes Africa’s 2018 30 Under 30. Find her on Twitter and on her website.

Home is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo
Published by Make Me A World on 2 March 2021
Genres: Novel-in-verse, YA
Pages: 224

Nima doesn't feel understood. By her mother, who grew up far away in a different land. By her suburban town, which makes her feel too much like an outsider to fit in and not enough like an outsider to feel like that she belongs somewhere else. At least she has her childhood friend Haitham, with whom she can let her guard down and be herself. Until she doesn't. As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen, the name her parents didn't give her at birth: Yasmeen. But that other name, that other girl, might just be more real than Nima knows.