Ali Nuri
author : Ali NuriMany years ago, before the eve of Desert Storm, the sequence of my most haunting experiences began. I was young when my family fled persecution from Saddam Hussein. Freedom from oppression by a ruthless tyrant served as the foundation of my earliest memories and was the trigger which sparked my nomadic existence. Why were we leaving and where were we going? These were mere thoughts rather than vocal expressions to either of my parents. \n\n I wouldn’t have understood what it meant to be a refugee or what circumstances would lead to such events at that time, but the experience of living in a refugee camp for many years had a profound effect on my life; it shaped my views and ideologies at such an early age. I didn’t understand why it was unbearably hot or why nothing grew in the desert sands, yet I was very aware that I had little desire to be in such an unsanitary place where thousands were confined to an uninhabitable area with no facilities to accommodate our basic needs, our dignity, or our humanity. Even with diseases and illnesses running rampant, it wasn’t without hope, at least for some of us; for me, I had my family. \n\nIn 1994, the despair, fear, and uncertainty had perished and from their ashes rose a renewed sense of purpose. My family was granted asylum in the United States, and I had never witnessed such beauty—a sea of green further than the eyes could see and as vast as the desert sands to which I had grown so accustomed. My curiosity flourished, and I came to realize that all of these simple questions (why we were leaving and where we were going) had infinitely complex answers. Being a displaced person at a young age had left me torn between two cultures that heavily conflicted with each other and feeling as though I didn’t belong in my entirety to either one. In my isolation, I was in a unique position to distinguish between and bring together both societies, and I would come to draw on these experiences to aid in writing my first book.
author : Ali NuriMany years ago, before the eve of Desert Storm, the sequence of my most haunting experiences began. I was young when my family fled persecution from Saddam Hussein. Freedom from oppression by a ruthless tyrant served as the foundation of my earliest memories and was the trigger which sparked my nomadic existence. Why were we leaving and where were we going? These were mere thoughts rather than vocal expressions to either of my parents. \n\n I wouldn’t have understood what it meant to be a refugee or what circumstances would lead to such events at that time, but the experience of living in a refugee camp for many years had a profound effect on my life; it shaped my views and ideologies at such an early age. I didn’t understand why it was unbearably hot or why nothing grew in the desert sands, yet I was very aware that I had little desire to be in such an unsanitary place where thousands were confined to an uninhabitable area with no facilities to accommodate our basic needs, our dignity, or our humanity. Even with diseases and illnesses running rampant, it wasn’t without hope, at least for some of us; for me, I had my family. \n\nIn 1994, the despair, fear, and uncertainty had perished and from their ashes rose a renewed sense of purpose. My family was granted asylum in the United States, and I had never witnessed such beauty—a sea of green further than the eyes could see and as vast as the desert sands to which I had grown so accustomed. My curiosity flourished, and I came to realize that all of these simple questions (why we were leaving and where we were going) had infinitely complex answers. Being a displaced person at a young age had left me torn between two cultures that heavily conflicted with each other and feeling as though I didn’t belong in my entirety to either one. In my isolation, I was in a unique position to distinguish between and bring together both societies, and I would come to draw on these experiences to aid in writing my first book.