Nation of Strangers

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION

'Ece Temelkuran is a brilliant thinker' Omar El Akkad
'Her most ambitious and dazzling book yet' Brian Eno
'Perhaps the most urgent and necessary book of our times' Michael Morpurgo

Dear stranger. Are you home? Do you feel at home? For how much longer?

Across the world the number of refugees and exiles, the dispossessed and displaced, the politically homeless and the economically excluded is growing. In the decade since she left her own home, Ece Temelkuran has been a political Cassandra, warning those convinced it couldn't happen in their country that fascism is coming.

Now, as oppression spreads and temperatures rise - as we face competing crises and learn, again and again, that no institution is so concrete it can't turn to dust, and no home is too strong to be destroyed - she has written Nation of Strangers: a series of letters from one stranger to another.

Politically attuned and deeply personal, this extraordinary, heartening correspondence is a gift to treasure in uncertain times. As poetic as it is precise, it is a book for anyone who feels alienated by an ever-more monstrous world. It shows how, as we all become strangers, our home will depend on the strength we find with one another.

Review: Nation of Strangers is perhaps the most urgent and necessary book of our times, for our times -- MICHAEL MORPURGO
One of the finest books I've ever read on what it means to be cast out, to be unhomed. Ece Temelkuran is a brilliant thinker, and her work here is as conceptually illuminating as it is beautifully written -- OMAR EL AKKAD
Ece Temelkuran, with her beautiful, elegiac new book on becoming "unhomed", is in serious danger of becoming the new Hannah Arendt -- YANIS VAROUFAKIS
A new book from Ece Temelkuran is a new way of understanding the world. She is lucid, honest and often wryly funny about where we are now, and who we are becoming. And Nation of Strangers is her most ambitious and dazzling book yet -- BRIAN ENO
Crackling with intelligence, insight and generosity -- KAMILA SHAMSIE
Temelkuran is a writer of rare gifts with an urgent message . . . A book you'll ignore at your peril * * Spectator * *
Turkish author Ece Temelkuran writes powerfully. Fans of Elif Shafak's non-fiction and Sally Hayden's writing will find a lot to love here * * Irish Independent * *
Her most personal [book] yet. Nation of Strangers is structured as a series of confiding, stirring letters addressed to the reader. Collectively, they conjure a roadmap for unity in uncertain times, rooted in [Temelkuran's] lived experience of being "unhomed" * * Nerve * *
Essential reading for this month, this year, this era -- CAROLINE SANDERSON, , 'Non-Fiction Book of the Month' * * Bookseller * *
Nation of Strangers is essential reading - a bold reminder, a stern warning, a soft prayer and courageous song. Without a doubt, it is my number one favourite book of these times . . . a critically honest observation of us, of you and me in the here and now, our fragile notion of home, the homes we leave behind, the home we carry with us. I feel like she is writing to me personally, teaching me to be stronger and much more resilient -- SALENA GODDEN

Prizes: Long-listed for Women's Prize for Non-Fiction 2026 (UK).