Return: Why We Go Back to Where We Come From illuminates a personal quest. Kamal Al-Solaylee, author of the bestselling and award-winning Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (for Everyone), yearns to reconnect with his family and to his homeland of Yemen, now wracked by war, starvation and daily violence. Yemen, as well as Egypt, another childhood home, call to him, even though he ran away from them in his youth and found peace and prosperity on the calm shores of Toronto.

Drawing on extensive reporting from around the world and astute political analysis, Al-Solaylee interviews dozens of people who have chosen to or long to return to their homelands, from the Basques to the Irish to the Taiwanese. In his own homeland, his Arabic stilted and his mannerisms foreign, Al-Solaylee finds that the English language and Western customs are now his only cultural currency. The book sets the narrative of going home against geopolitical forces that are likely to shape the rest of this century and beyond. It’s a book for anyone who has ever wondered what it would be like to return to their roots.

Kamal Al-Solaylee talks with Dimitri Nasrallah (Niko) about Return, a chronicle of love and loss, of global reach and personal desires.

About this event’s guests:
Kamal Al-Solaylee
Dimitri Nasrallah

Author photo courtesy of Mark Raynes Roberts.

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Kamal Al-Solaylee: Why We Go Back to Where We Came From