Back Where I Came From: On Culture, Identity, and Home, edited by Taslim Jaffer and Omar Mouallem

In this collection of personal essays, twenty-six writers from across North America share journeys back to their motherlands as visitors. Set against mountainous terrain, tropical beaches, bustling cities, and remote villages, these narratives weave socio-political commentary with writers’ reflections on who they are, where they belong, and what “home” means to them.

The result is a vulnerable, humorous, and insightful exploration of meanings and contradictions, beginning a conversation waiting to be had by the growing population of first- and second-generation Canadians and Americans, who will find themselves within these pages. Navigating the intricacies of hyphenated identities with nuanced stories of heritage and a redefined sense of home, the essays in Back Where I Came From: On Culture, Identity, and Home open a door to places around the globe—and within ourselves.

With contributions by Omar El Akkad, Nadine Araksi, Ofelia Brooks, Esmeralda Cabral, June Chua, Seema Dhawan, Krista Eide, Eufemia Fantetti, Ayesha Habib, Christina Hoag, Mariam Ibrahim, Taslim Jaffer, Vesna Jaksic Lowe, Kathryn Gwun-Yeen Lennon, Omar Mouallem, Dimitri Nasrallah, Lishai Peel, Omar Reyes, Mahta Riazi, Steven Sandor, Angelo Santos, Alison Tedford Seaweed, Makda Teshome, Nhung N. Tran-Davies, Alexandra C. Yeboah, and Hannah Zalaa-Uul.

Press Coverage

2024 Fall Preview: Nonfiction –Quill & Quire

Life Stories: New Memoir and Biography –49th Shelf

Book Marks: Returning “home” through new eyes –Edmonton Journal

First and second-generation writers from across North America share their journeys back to their motherlands as visitors: An Interview with Taslim Jaffer –CBC Radio On The Coast with Gloria Macarenko

Book gift ideas for the 2024 holiday season –The Globe and Mail

“Reading through Jaffer and Mouallem’s collection, I felt profoundly witnessed and experienced a certain kinship with each writer, despite the specifics of our diasporic experiences. As global migration continues to shape the world we occupy, and people are displaced both by political upheaval and circumstance as well as by choice, the experiences of immigrants and their children are invaluable to our shared cultural history. We need to hear these stories—both to feel seen ourselves, and to bear witness to the lives of others.” –Paloma Pacheco, The Tyee

Read an excerpt from Back Where I Came From: “Hooky in the Homeland” by Omar Mouallem –Maisonneuve

“This collection of essays, written by diasporic authors, dazzles and transports readers to countries around the world… The result is an exploration of identity and cultural norms and expectations; of the shifting narratives of self we create and that others create for us—whether we want them to or not. I found myself longing, grieving, outraged, and rejoicing alongside these narrators as they transported me back where they came from in a plethora of beautiful ways.” –Adelle Purdham, author of I Don’t Do Disability

Surrey author explores ‘complicated and beautiful’ hyphenated existence: Taslim Jaffer’s motherland visit answers question of belonging –Tracy Holmes, Cloverdale Reporter

OMAR MOUALLEM is an author, filmmaker, and educator. His journalism has appeared in The Guardian, WIRED, and The Wall Street Journal. His book How Muslims Shaped the Americas won the 2022 Wilfred Eggelston Nonfiction Award and was named one of the Globe and Mail’s 100 best books of 2021. His documentary The Lebanese Burger Mafia, which documents the unlikely link between fast-food and Lebanese immigrants, won the 2023 Audience Choice for Best Doc at Northwest International Documentary Festival. He also teaches creative nonfiction at the University of King’s College and is the “fake dean” of Pandemic University School of Writing, a virtual school he founded in support of writers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. He lives in Edmonton.