Review: "They Told Me Back Home Would Be Beautiful" by Elena Dudum

They Told Me Back Home Would Be Beautiful by Elena Dudum
Published October 2026 via Atria
★★★★

I will never have the authority of proximity. I have its absence. Distance is the condition of my inheritance. I am who I am, because someone else left. (loc. 3181*)

A memoir of family and generational trauma and what it means to be Palestinian American. Dudum's grandparents immigrated to the US as young adults, and Dudum's parents (but mostly her father) were determined that she would not forget their history; she would not forget how much was lost to their family. As a child, Dudum wasn't interested; she just wanted to fit in. As an adult, she started to understand where her father's lectures were coming from.

You don't have to look far to know why I was interested in this book at this point in time, but the book isn't about current events—it's about growing up in a culture that tells you that the place your family is from no longer exists, that you must mean your family is from Pakistan, that you have no right to do so much as visit the place your ancestors are from. That it is not your, shall we say, Birthright.

There aren't a lot of answers here—mostly, there's a circling of facts and context as Dudum's understanding of the past gradually comes into clearer focus, and as it also becomes clearer how few people around her know enough to say something coherent on the matter. This is the sort of story that doesn't really end; it changes shape as time goes on. Written a couple of years later, I suspect this would have to take yet another shape. Don't read it for current events as they stand, but read if you want a better grasp on some of the things surrounding those current events and for a diaspora perspective.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to read a review copy through NetGalley.