When I received my ARC from Random House through Netgalley I was surprised to find I had missed the fact that ‘Home is Not a Country’ by Safia Elhillo was to be a novel told in verse. Therefore, I found myself just enough disconcerted to pause prior to reading. That was the only pause, as Elhillo’s language was both fluid and compelling. Like a river into which I had fallen it pulled me along.
The interweaving of the real and the surreal is done seamlessly. The reader’s connection to the grit, the religious intolerance, and the emotional content of a life lived is found in equal measure in those dreamlike moments of magical realism. Time is as much a character as the people. The past is as tangible as the present. The imagination is as important as actions taken.
‘Home is Not a Country’ sweeps away the boundaries of place and time to situate the reader in the interior of the protagonist, Nima, as she navigates her desire for something she believes she does not have. The old country holds as much sway as the new. Until she can determine which will take precedence, which will be her grounding, she is adrift.
‘Home is Not a Country’ is a powerful book of tender reflection at odds with an unfeeling and indifferent world. A book exploring the desire for home, when choosing one means giving up another. A book of change, of a possible future.
Safia Elhillo, does not shy away from the trauma of the brutal oppression of the old country nor the scars left by the hatred of the new. She explores with distinct understanding what it means to be immigrant, to be Muslim in a Christian world, and to be all too clearly designated ‘other’. This is no diatribe against the outside world, but a grappling with the interior one. More emotional than critical, more thoughtful musing than heedless action, ‘Home is Not a Country’ allows the reader to become. To grow. To understand.