Wholesale Diaspora of the Middle East and North Africa

Iranians in Los Angeles, Kurds in Nashville, Yemenis in Singapore: this collection of essays, interviews, architectural profiles, urban memories, Q+As, photo essays and travel stories highlights the diverse young and old diaspora communities of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) around the world. Drawing on topics from the 10-year archive of Brownbook magazine—a publication dedicated to covering stories on the contemporary culture of the wider MENA region and its diaspora, including people, architecture and more than 50 cities—the book is driven by the magazine’s expansive research and content. And in light of the recent refugee crisis, it is an urgent testament that migration from the region isn’t something new. Diaspora of the Middle East and North Africa is a gateway to the communities who have planted roots in adoptive cities where they now seamlessly blend, from the nine million strong Arab community in Brazil that arrived from modern-day Lebanon and Syria in the late 1880s, to the Singaporean descendants of Yemen who have helped shape the city state’s urban fabric through trade and development for nearly two centuries. The book also covers the small but significant diaspora communities who have formed enclaves across the world, such as the Kurdish residents with barber shops and food joints in Nashville and the Assyrians in Södertälje, Sweden, who place equal importance on integration and preserving their history through local institutions and social clubs.