Home I Worked to Make

Finalist for the 2025 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for NonfictionWar forced millions of Syrians from their homes. It also forced them to rethink the meaning of home itself.In 2011, Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom. Brutal government repression transformed peaceful protests into one of the most devastating conflicts of our times, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing millions. The Home I Worked to Make takes Syrias refugee outflow as its point of departure. Based on hundreds of interviews conducted across more than a decade, it probes a question as intimate as it is universal: What is home? With gripping immediacy, Syrians now on five continents share stories of leaving, losing, searching, and finding (or not finding) home. Across this tapestry of voices, a new understanding emerges: home, for those without the privilege of taking it for granted, is both struggle and achievement. Recasting refugee crises as acts of diaspora-making, The Home I Worked to Make challenges readers to grapple with the hard-won wisdom of those who survive war and to see, with fresh eyes, what home means in their own lives.