The Refugee’s Story with Dina Nayeri

As the author of two novels, Dina Nayeri uses fiction to inform nonfiction in her latest book, The Ungrateful Refugee. Jessica Goudeau spoke to Nayeri for Guernica about the ways fiction has helped her when working with refugees and their stories. “You have to learn to write fiction in order to learn how to tell the truth,” Nayeri says. “In fiction, if you dare to write anything more than what actually happened, then you’re very quickly told you’re being sentimental. And that would be absolutely true! It’s way more powerful to allow readers to find the power and the emotion and the heartbreak for themselves.”