I Don’t Want to Talk About Home

Description

‘I carry my troubled homeland within me; I hide it like a crime.’

Growing up in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia, Suad Aldarra never quite felt at home. The daughter of Syrian migrants, she railed against the extreme strictures placed on women in Saudi society. When the opportunity came to study software engineering at Damascus University, she jumped at the chance for a degree of freedom she’d never known.

But when the war came, everything changed. Suddenly Suad and her new husband Housam were thrown into a world of relentless pressure; first fleeing to post-Arab Spring Egypt, Suad’s work as a data scientist was a saving grace that allowed her to come to Ireland as an economic migrant. Yet reaching safety came at a price…

I Don’t Want to Talk About Home is not a memoir about war and destruction. It’s not about camps or boats. It’s about what came before and how to build a life out of the rubble. With great warmth and insight, Suad writes about those left behind, the sacrifices made, and the parts of yourself you lose when integrating into a new world and culture.