Who Gets Believed?

The prizewinning author of The Ungrateful Refugee asks who is heard in our society, who is not — and why?

'I knew this from the beginning, when I was inside the lorry, thinking about truth. If you are a good storyteller you will be trusted, get a life, and escape from hell. But what do you need to do to be trusted, if telling the truth is not enough?' — Aso, a refugee working with Freedom from Torture

Aso is one of many powerful voices in Dina Nayeri's wide-ranging, groundbreaking new book, which combines deep reportage with her own life experience to examine what constitutes believability. Intent on exploring ideas of persuasion and performance, Nayeri takes us behind the scenes in emergency rooms, corporate boardrooms, asylum interviews and into her own family, to ask — where lies the difference between being believed and being dismissed? What does this mean for our culture?

As personal as it is profound in its reflections on language, history, morality and compassion, Who Gets Believed?investigates the unspoken social codes that determine how we relate to one another.

'I was hugely moved by this book. Who Gets Believed? is essential reading, an extraordinary labour of love and hope that is destined to become indispensable in the continuing struggle for justice' — John Burnside