Refugee Hotel: 137 (Voice of Witness) - Softcover

Stabile; Linderman

3.72

32 ratings by Goodreads

9781936365623: Refugee Hotel: 137 (Voice of Witness)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1936365626 ISBN 13: 9781936365623

Publisher: McSweeney's, 2012

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The Refugee Hotel is a groundbreaking collection of photography and interviews that documents the arrival of refugees in the United States. A lavishly designed book, its stunning images are coupled with moving testimonies from people describing their first days in the U.S., the lives they’ve left behind, and the new communities they’ve since created. Among the narrators:

PSAW WAH BAW, who was forced to flee her village in Burma amidst armed conflict. She describes how her family left their village with just five cups of rice, beginning an arduous journey toward resettlement that would take them through Bangkok, Tokyo, Illinois, and Texas.

PASTOR NOEL, who fled the civil war in Burundi in 1972 for a refugee camp in Congo. When war erupted in Congo in 1996, Noel was once again forced from his home. He now lives in Mobile, Alabama, and is a central figure in the African refugee community.

FELIX, a South Sudanese man who joined the rebel army as a teenager but eventually fled to a refugee camp in Kenya. Felix now lives in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he works with Habitat for Humanity to assist African refugees in purchasing their own homes.

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Review:

"Photographer Stabile and journalist Linderman present the images and words of refugees to the U.S. in this compact, beautiful volume." Publishers Weekly

"Refugee Hotel is full of stories that pull you in so immediately, and with such force, that the act of reading becomes surreal. Instead of sitting on the couch holding a book, it is as if you are in a movie theater, watching an independent film dominating awards season. It enriches your life in the moment, and leaves an impression so intimate you cannot easily forget it. There is no other book like Refugee Hotel on your shelf. You should remedy that soon." Alexis Coe, SF Weekly

PRAISE FOR VOICE OF WITNESS

These books are amazing beautifully produced, with incredible editing and literary sensibility. Voice of Witness has done a better job than I’ve seen anybody do with having people tell their stories in a way that really engages you.”
Rachel Maddow, MSNBC, Air America

The series does not so much weave a tapestry from different experiences as braid a rope, a lifeline by which we might haul ourselves into a less ignorant, more actively compassionate future. In them, the specific illuminates the general, destroying preconceptions, stereotypes, and cop-out responses along the way.”
Richard Vernon, Sojourners Magazine

In a time when history is told in cheap television re-enactments, if at all, and personal tragedy is gobbled up in rapidly digestible magazine photos and reality shows, this project goes against the grain.”
Guardian UK

About the Author:

Gabriele Stabile is an Italian photographer based in New York City. His photography has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Juliet Linderman is a reporter living in Brooklyn. Formerly the editor of a small community newspaper, she has written for many publications including the New York Times and the Village Voice.

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