Without tells a story of searching for belonging both in the world and within your own skin. Born in Saudi Arabia to a Yemeni family, the novel’s protagonist has been ill-at-ease since childhood, because she never felt like she was a girl. Alia’s alienation grows as she slowly comes to realise that she is, in fact, a man and begins the transition to live life as Ali.This is a very important story to tell as it portrays the struggles of gender non-conforming people in society. The novel is sensitive and frank in how it approaches an intersex person’s struggles with the realities of love, friendship, and survival against the backdrop of a life lived between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and then later the UK. Without navigates complex issues in a very human way, painting an honest portrait of how people come to terms with challenges they never expected they would face. Told in a deceptively simple style, through a tightly woven and skillful narration, Without makes these struggles resonate with us all.

Hussein is one among millions of displaced Syrians who lost their homes and country, seeking refuge around the world. His narrative biography relates the experiences of an asylum-seeker’s interactions with people he meets after leaving Syria, each chapter a new facet of his journey. Entwining themes of belonging, identity, and family, the stories diverge in chronology and capture snapshots of myriad locations, ultimately reuniting around the central conversation between the refugee and Agatha Christie, though her biography, Come, tell me how you live, and mystery novel, And Then There Were None. From his Syrian hometown to Lebanon, Egypt, Scotland, and England, Hussein maps the path of a man cast out of his familiar world. The reader falls into the refugee’s nostalgic and painful recollections, his sometimes bitter, sometimes hopeful speculations. No One May Remain is a raw and candid perspective from a Kurdish-Syrian author on the war in Syria, the refugee crisis, and life for a refugee in the West.

Without tells a story of searching for belonging both in the world and within your own skin. Born in Saudi Arabia to a Yemeni family, the novel’s protagonist has been ill-at-ease since childhood, because she never felt like she was a girl. Alia’s alienation grows as she slowly comes to realise that she is, in fact, a man and begins the transition to live life as Ali.This is a very important story to tell as it portrays the struggles of gender non-conforming people in society. The novel is sensitive and frank in how it approaches an intersex person’s struggles with the realities of love, friendship, and survival against the backdrop of a life lived between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and then later the UK. Without navigates complex issues in a very human way, painting an honest portrait of how people come to terms with challenges they never expected they would face. Told in a deceptively simple style, through a tightly woven and skillful narration, Without makes these struggles resonate with us all.

Hussein is one among millions of displaced Syrians who lost their homes and country, seeking refuge around the world. His narrative biography relates the experiences of an asylum-seeker’s interactions with people he meets after leaving Syria, each chapter a new facet of his journey. Entwining themes of belonging, identity, and family, the stories diverge in chronology and capture snapshots of myriad locations, ultimately reuniting around the central conversation between the refugee and Agatha Christie, though her biography, Come, tell me how you live, and mystery novel, And Then There Were None. From his Syrian hometown to Lebanon, Egypt, Scotland, and England, Hussein maps the path of a man cast out of his familiar world. The reader falls into the refugee’s nostalgic and painful recollections, his sometimes bitter, sometimes hopeful speculations. No One May Remain is a raw and candid perspective from a Kurdish-Syrian author on the war in Syria, the refugee crisis, and life for a refugee in the West.