The UC Berkeley On the Same Page program gives new students (and everyone else!) at Cal something to talk about. This year, we’re all on the same page reading Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid. Learn more about the novel, the author, special events and courses relating to the theme.
"Mohsin Hamid's dynamic yet lapidary books have all explored the convulsive changes overtaking the world, as tradition and modernity clash headlong, and as refugees -- fleeing war or poverty or hopelessness -- try to make their way to safer ground. His compelling new novel, "Exit West," is no exception, recounting the story of the migrants Saeed and Nadia, who leave an unnamed country in the midst of a civil war and journey to Greece, England and eventually the United States in an effort to invent new lives for themselves."
--New York Times website. library database
Other useful UC Berkeley Library Guides:
United Nations (see tabs on Population/Refugees, Humanitarian Aid, and Human Rights)
From other universities:
Refugees and Migrants: Information Resources for a Global Crisis (University of Michigan Library)
Immigration and Refugees (Penn State University Libraries)
Migration, Immigration, Diasporas and Refugees (Princeton University Library)
"Although often used interchangeably by the general public, there are crucial distinctions between the terms "refugee" and "migrant":
Refugees are persons who are outside their country of origin for reasons of feared persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or other circumstances that have seriously disturbed public order and, as a result, require international protection. The refugee definition can be found in the 1951 Convention and regional refugee instruments, as well as UNHCR’s Statute.
--United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
While there is no formal legal definition of an international migrant, most experts agree that an international migrant is someone who changes his or her country of usual residence, irrespective of the reason for migration or legal status. Generally, a distinction is made between short-term or termporary migration, covering movements with a duration between three and 12 months, and long-term or permanent migration, referring to a change of country of residence for a duration of one year or more.
--United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
definitions from: United Nations: Refugees and Migrants
Available through the UC Berkeley Library as an ebook, and an audio book, and possibly through your public library.
.
UC Library Search is the University of California’s unified discovery and borrowing system.
Access it directly or from the Library's homepage to find most UC books, articles, media, archival collections, and more.
You can also:
See the UC Library Search user guide and ask for research help 24/7 for more information.
Sample Searches:
"exit west" hamid
"mohsin hamid" interview
fiction refugees
use filters on the left to limit your search results to scholarly articles, reviews, etc.
"Apparently nobody wants to know that contemporary history has created a new kind of human beings—the kind that are put in concentration camps by their foes and in internment camps by their friends."
-- Hannah Arendt, "We Refugees"
_2.jpg){kind=link}