Who Gets Believed? : When the Truth Isn’t Enough

The prizewinning author of The Ungrateful Refugee asks who is believed in our society, who is not - and why? 'Ambitious and moving... it will cement Nayeri's position as a master storyteller of the refugee experience' Guardian

Dina Nayeri's wide-ranging, groundbreaking new book combines deep reportage with her own life experience to examine what constitutes believability in our society. Intent on exploring ideas of persuasion and performance, Nayeri takes us behind the scenes in emergency rooms, corporate boardrooms, asylum interviews and into her own family, to ask - where lies the difference between being believed and being dismissed? What does this mean for our culture? As personal as it is profound in its reflections on language, history, morality and compassion, Who Gets Believed? investigates the unspoken social codes that determine how we relate to one another.

'An important, courageous, brilliant book' Robert Macfarlane, bestselling author of Underland 'Dina Nayeri asks an incredibly important question, and the answers she finds are crucial for all of us' Oliver Bullough, bestselling author of Butler to the World 'I was hugely moved by this book. Who Gets Believed? is essential reading, an extraordinary labour of love and hope that is destined to become indispensable in the continuing struggle for justice' John Burnside, winner of the David Cohen Prize for Literature 2023