Hala Gorani's memoir 'But You Don't Look Arab' is a journey of belonging

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Arts, Books

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2024

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Journalist and former CNN anchor Hala Gorani tells NPR's Leila Fadel that she has a whole paragraph queued up to answer a seemingly simple question: Where are you from? Gorani's memoir, But You Don't Look Arab, unpacks her many roots across Istanbul, Syria, France and the U.S. — and grapples with how her identity and its impact on her work have been scrutinized for decades. In today's episode, she opens up about why she had to change her name and add a photo of herself to her passport to land a job in journalism, and why constant movement can offer an odd sort of comfort for her.

To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. A little journalism insider baseball for a second. Generally
0:08.0	speaking, if you are, say, from New York City and you apply to be a sports reporter covering the Yankees,
0:14.9	nobody is going to question, hmm, will this person be able to cover the Yankees fairly?
0:21.3	It actually kind of makes sense that someone from New York would do a good job covering the Yankees, right?
0:26.7	But that logic isn't applied consistently.
0:29.8	For instance, on the pod today, we've got journalist Hala Gorani.
0:32.9	Her parents are from Syria.
0:34.7	But in order to get a job covering the Middle East, she says she actually
0:38.7	had to hide her background. Oddly enough, because she has lighter skin, she added a photo
0:44.3	to her resume to help her, I don't know, like, pass. It added a real complexity to her already
0:50.1	complex background in identity, and she wrote about it in her memoir titled, But You Don't
0:55.2	Look Arab. Here she is talking to NPR's Lila Fado in a minute. In the U.S., national security
1:01.5	news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors
1:08.3	on our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:18.2	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:24.1	Journalists and now former CNN anchor Halegarani has traveled the world, covering war, violent
1:29.5	extremism, natural disasters, and mass migration.
1:33.3	She says she feels like she belongs everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
1:37.2	Her parents are from Syria.
1:39.0	She was born in the US and grew up in France and a lot of the time, based on how she looks,
1:44.0	people assume she's not
1:45.9	Arab. That's the backbone of her new book called But You Don't Look Arab, a search for where
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.