‘I want to tell you about a different kind of world, one that exists within the world we live in,’ writes Akuch Kuol Anyieth in her memoir, Unknown, thus inviting her readers to empathise with the singular plight of refugees. For much too long, refugees have been overlooked or rendered invisible; they are confined to refugee camps, detention centres, and hotel rooms, condemned to the margins of society, and denied entry to territories in order to seek safe haven. Anyieth’s endeavour, through the personal medium of the memoir, to foreground the lives and perspectives of refugees is admirable, given that it obliges her to relive past traumas. Unknown is a vivid, embodied portrait of Anyieth’s resilience and her will to overcome.
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