Love Across Borders

“A book designed to change minds and hearts. What are we fighting for, after all, if not a world where love can be truly free?” —Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won't Love You Back and Necessary Trouble 

We are told that love conquers all, but what happens when you don’t have the right passport? With deep empathy, rigorous reporting, and the irresistible perspective of a true romantic, journalist Anna Lekas Miller tells the stories of couples around the world who must confront Kafkaesque immigration systems to be together—as she did to be with her husband.
 
Love  Across  Borders  takes  readers  through  contentious  frontiers  around  the  world,  from Turkey to Iraq, Syria to Greece, Mexico to the United States, to reveal the wide-spread  prejudicial  laws  intent  on  dividing  us.  Lekas  Miller  tells  her  own  gripping  story  of  meeting  Salem  Rizk,  in  Istanbul,  where  they were  both  reporting  on  the  Syrian  civil war. But when Turkey started cracking down on refugees, Salem, who is Syrian, wasn’t allowed to stay there, nor could he safely return to Syria. He was a man without a country. So Lekas Miller had to decide her next move: she had an American passport but deep personal ties to the Middle East, and she knew it was unfair that Salem couldn’t travel freely the way she could. More important, she loved him. 

Over  the  next  few  years,  as  they  navigated  Salem’s  asylum  claims,  the  United  States’  Muslim  ban,  and  labyrinthine  regulations  in  several  different countries,  Lekas  Miller learned about—and naturally bonded with—other people whose spouses had been deported,  who  found  love  in  refugee  camps, whose  differing  immigration  statuses  caused  complicated  power  dynamics  and  financial  hardship  in  their  relationships  or  threatened  the  wellbeing  of their  children.  Here,  offering  a  uniquely  diverse,  international, and intimate look at the global immigration crisis, she collects and interweaves these  rich  love stories  with  a  fascinating  look  at  the  history  of  passports  (a  shockingly  recent institution), the legacy of colonialism, and the discriminatory laws shaping how people move through the world every day. 

Ultimately, she builds a powerful, moving case for a borderless society—one where she and Salem could move freely to be near family or back to the city that first let them fall in love, and where a border patrol agent can’t keep anyone’s love story from its happy ending. 

“"Anna Lekas Miller's debut book is a beautiful, heartrending--and heartwarming--tour of the world through the eyes of its migrants, crossing borders or being crossed by them in their attempts to be with the ones they care for. It is a thoroughly readable book that also deepened my understanding of the world of passports and visas, border walls and armed guards in which we all live today, whether we experience it firsthand or not. It is a book about love in all its messy, imperfect realities, made all the richer by the author's willingness to be vulnerable about her own love story. And most of all, it is a book designed to change minds and hearts. What are we fighting for, after all, if not a world where love can be truly free? I'm looking forward to much more from this vibrant and necessary writer."-- Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won't Love You Back and Necessary Trouble”

“A heartbreaking, beautifully written, and deeply personal exploration of the bloody reality of the border regime, and defiant triumph of love.”—Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood and Brothers of the Gun (with Marwan Hisham)
“Anyone interested in moving beyond the headlines to see the human face of immigration will find this book about the structural inequalities of cross-border relationships timely, thoughtful, and provocative. Eye-opening reading that ably blends the personal and the universal.”
 —Kirkus Reviews
“Love Across Borders is a powerful and unforgettable testament to the humanity and love that prevail in spite of borders. This is a book that will make you weep, rage, and fight for the change our world deserves.”—Qian Julie Wang, author of the New York Times bestseller, Beautiful Country
“Anna Lekas Miller has achieved so much in this beautiful collection of love stories. Each account, including her own, is woven like a delicate tapestry, one that reveals the cruelty of borders and the resilience of the human spirit. With humor and historical context, Lekas Miller shows us that despite the inhumane divisions created by those in power, human beings will always find a way to love one another.”—Erika L. Sánchez, author of the New York Times bestseller, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter and Crying in the Bathroom
"Anna Lekas Miller's debut book is a beautiful, heartrending—and heartwarming—tour of the world through the eyes of its migrants, crossing borders or being crossed by them in their attempts to be with the ones they care for. It is a thoroughly readable book that also deepened my understanding of the world of passports and visas, border walls and armed guards in which we all live today, whether we experience it firsthand or not. It is a book about love in all its messy, imperfect realities, made all the richer by the author's willingness to be vulnerable about her own love story. And most of all, it is a book designed to change minds and hearts. What are we fighting for, after all, if not a world where love can be truly free? I'm looking forward to much more from this vibrant and necessary writer."—Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won't Love You Back and Necessary Trouble
“A welcome counterpoint to headlines of war in the Middle East, Miller tells a love story.”—The Boston Globe, a Best Book of 2023
“This eye-opening account brings personal stories to the forefront of the international refugee crisis… Sometimes heartwarming, sometimes excruciating, these engrossing accounts are now documented by a woman who speaks for thousands of star-crossed lovers.”—Booklist, starred review
"A beautiful, heartrending—and heartwarming—tour of the world through the eyes of its migrants that also deepened my understanding of the world of passports and visas, border walls and armed guards in which we all live today. It is a book about love in all its messy, imperfect realities, made all the richer by the author's willingness to be vulnerable about her own love story. And most of all, it is a book designed to change minds and hearts. What are we fighting for, after all, if not a world where love can be truly free? I'm looking forward to much more from this vibrant and necessary writer."—Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won't Love You Back and Necessary Trouble
"This is an impassioned nonfiction narrative that interweaves the author’s personal and professional lives to relate the hostile environment of a global migration crisis"—Library Journal
“Love Across Borders has the emotional rollercoaster of a romance novel, but all the love stories (and the heartache within) are all too real. An almost guaranteed tearjerker that will leave you more knowledgable—and more frustrated—than when you first picked it up.”
 —Jezebel
“Michelle Dowd’s youthful voice makes it easy for listeners to be transported… confidence and self-assurance fill her narration as she breaks free from the rigidity and abuse that have controlled her life”—Audiofile Magazine

Anna Lekas Miller is a writer and journalist who covers stories of the ways that conflict and migration shape the lives of people around the world. She has reported from Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq, covering the Israeli occupation, the Syrian civil war and exodus to Europe, and the rise and fall of the Islamic State. Since moving to London, she has turned her attention to the rise of the far right in Europe and the United States, investigating immigration systems, white supremacist ideology, and the ways that people are standing up to them. She is most interested in stories of love and healing in an unpredictable and unstable world.

Her journalism and essays have appeared in Vanity Fair, the Intercept, CNN, the New Humanitarian, and Newlines Magazine. She tweets, Instagrams, and TikToks under the handle @annalekasmiller and lives in London with her husband, Salem.
 

 

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