This searing memoir recounts one woman’s epic journey to trace the global slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean—and find her place in the world. When Tara Roberts first caught sight of a photograph at Smithsonian’s Museum depicting the underwater archaeology group Diving With a Purpose, it called out to her. Here were Black women and men strapping on masks, fins, and tanks to explore Atlantic Ocean waters, seeking the wrecks of slave ships long lost in time. Inspired, Roberts joined them—and started on a path of discovery more challenging and personal than she could ever have imagined.
Whenever I have the chance, I explore the Google Maps app on my phone. When I look at a random location on the app, whether it’s in Burkina Faso, eastern Europe, a narrow border between two countries, or an island near Antarctica, I always imagine what it’s like. Do the locals enjoy living there? What issues are they currently facing? What are their stories? I feel the constant urge to book a plane ticket, but because traveling around the world is not an affordable option for me, reading travelogues and travel memoirs—in addition to randomly exploring places on Google Maps—has become a pastime. When I feel jaded, I read a lot of memoirs. The goal is to gain new insights and ideas from different people, learn from their experiences, and acquire nuggets of wisdom that I can apply in my daily life.
The list I curated below features books that will virtually transport you around the world. Most are by immigrants who left their home countries in search of a better life. They left countries torn apart by war or instability to find their place in a world that has treated them unfairly—or they left simply to reconnect with their family’s culture. They move from one country to another until they find a sense of belonging, a place they can call home. Their stories intersect with contemporary historical and cultural themes. They provide a lens on how things were before, and how the authors were able to overcome the challenges thrown at them. In here, there are also a couple of books by journalists that intertwine their personal lives and experiences covering major historical events around the world. From the Middle East to Europe, Asia, and the Americas, these journalists share unique or unfiltered experiences that can’t be captured in a newspaper article.
I hope that by reading their stories, you may gain new perspectives on the world and have more to think about as you embark on your own journey.
Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones by Priyanka Mattoo
The author and her family used to live in the Himalayan mountains of India, but they were forced to relocate due to a conflict in 1989. Since then, they have lived a nomadic lifestyle, moving between the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Italy, and the United States.
In this book, Mattoo recounts all of her wins and loses along the way: visiting relatives all over the world, making and losing friends, meeting the love of her life, and, most importantly, finding a home and herself in a chaotic world.
Air and Love: A Story of Food, Family and Belonging by Or Rosenboim
The author grew up with her grandmothers cooking for her. The food selection is diverse, coming from a variety of countries. When her grandmothers died, however, the recipe book was all that remained.
In this memoir, the author follows the origins of the recipes and discovers a connection to her family’s history: what her ancestors did at a particular time in their lives, where they were, and what kinds of food they ate at the time. She learns that they relocated to Latvia, Uzbekistan, Israel, and other locations.
“My family’s recipes guided my historical investigation of the migration routes of my ancestors, across Central Asia, Northern Europe and the Mediterranean. The stories that I uncovered recounted the lives of people who are rarely remembered, because they left but a few documents to record their existence. Yet, as I continued to explore their past, it became apparent that their individual stories of displacement were part of larger flows of people who sought their futures elsewhere in agitated times,” she writes.
It’s a culinary journey through different places and time periods.
A Rift in Time: Travels with My Ottoman Uncle by Raja Shehadeh
The memoir follows the author as he retraces the steps of his great-great-uncle, Najib, born in the late 19th century. The author recounts Najib’s life under the Ottoman Empire, which encompassed countries such as Greece, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, and some parts of Saudi Arabia and North Africa.
He recounts his two-year journey, discovering many aspects of his family’s history and reflecting on the current situation in Palestine; he considers the changes that have occurred since then. “The quest for Najib—the details of his life and the route of his great escape—that consumed me for the next thirteen years was not an easy one. Most of Palestine’s history, together with that of its people, is buried deep in the ground,” he writes.
Beyond the Mountains: An Immigrant’s Inspiring Journey of Healing and Learning to Dance with the Universe by Deja Vu Prem
Prem’s life in a barrio, or poor village in the Philippines, was very simple. She had, however, been neglected and even abused by a family member as a child. To save herself and have a better future, she becomes a mail-order bride for an American. This kind of illegal trade used to be common in low-income countries such as the Philippines. Prem was then whisked all the way from a remote province in the Philippines to San Francisco, brimming with hope for the future. “I left the barrio feeling like I had a voice for the first time. Leaving was an opportunity for me to navigate my destiny,” she writes.
But the grass isn’t always greener on the other side: what awaits her in the U.S. is horror. Her husband turns abusive, cutting her contact with her family and other sources of support. So, Prem devises a plan to escape.
But You Don’t Look Arab: And Other Tales of Unbelonging by Hala Gorani
Journalist Gorani faced discrimination as a child in France. As an adult, she had to change her Arabic last name to a Western-sounding one to fit in and land a job. “At the time, I wanted to work in the journalism industry so badly that I was ready to whitewash my identity in ways I find heartbreaking today,” she writes.
In her memoir, Gorani recounts her other personal and journalistic experiences covering events around the world. She writes about her time living in France, Egypt, Syria, London, Istanbul, Iraq, Lebanon, and Morocco, among others. While constantly on the move, Gorani doesn’t stop finding her sense of identity. “My search for who I am and where I belong continues. Perhaps this desire to never stop moving and to always search for a home is why journalism became my life’s passion . . . I will find a bit of myself in every story I tell, whether it is my own or someone else’s.”
I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying by Youngmi Mayer
Youngmi Mayer begins her story with her turbulent early years on Saipan and recounts some of her family’s significant ties in Korea. In her adulthood, she relocates to the U.S. from Saipan, moving from San Francisco to New York, to begin her own life. “My story isn’t about the parts of my life that are subversive to the Asian stereotypes . . . My story is about the fact that no one else in the world has lived my life,” she writes.
Though the memoir can be dense and harrowing, the author’s sense of humor helps to balance it out.
Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life by Nicholas D. Kristof
This is another memoir by a journalist who was assigned to cover numerous events around the world. Since the 1980s, the author has reported for The New York Times. In here, he talks about his experiences while covering assignments in Hong Kong, China, Japan, India, and Europe. He covered many significant world history events, including the Tiananmen Square massacre in China and the civil war in Yemen.
In journalism, the reporter should not get involved with their subjects, but the author has helped some of them anyway; some of these narratives are moving and can be life-threatening for the people involved. “In interviewing people from enormously different cultures, I learned something of the universality of the human condition . . . But broadly speaking, I’ve found that whatever our gender, pigment, ethnicity, faith or culture, we’re all siblings,” he writes.
As the Rivers Merge: A Story of Love, War and Perseverance Across Continents by Daniel Mamah
It’s the post-1960s Nigerian Civil War, and the author’s father has urged him to leave the country. From there, he travels around before settling in Budapest, Hungary, where he meets the love of his life.
Enter Judit, the grand-niece of a well-known composer in Hungary. She also felt traumatized by the revolution in her home country, and because she’s Catholic, she’s unable to pursue her dreams of becoming a music teacher.
Their worlds collide, and the rest is history.
If you need more travel memoirs, here are travel memoirs that aren’t by the usual white men, and then check out these place-based memoirs.