Home Is Not a Country

Nima is the narrator of the story, the speaker of the poems, and the protagonist. At the outset, she has low self-esteem and constantly compares herself to the jinni Yasmeen, an alternate version of herself whom Nima views as more beautiful, well-spoken, and confident. Her self-perception is encapsulated in her opinion about her name, which means grace. Nima states that it is “grace i don’t have” (15). As a result, Nima keeps to herself, with no friends other than Haitham, and immerses herself in traditional music, dance, and film. Additionally, she imagines a better life, one she fabricates from old photographs of her parents in Sudan.

It is not until Nima is transported across time and space to the period before her birth that she appreciates both herself and her life. First, she realizes that nothing is perfect, even if it appears to be in a photograph. An example of this is when she learns who her father truly is. When she overhears his plans to leave her mother, Nima feels “stupid    ashamed of the life [she] spent pining / for this stranger   this man [she] never knew   who never / wanted to know [her]    this ghost [she’s] measured [her] mother / against” (141).