Hope You Still Love Me - Rabha Ashry
Product Details:
Paperback : 298 Pages
ISBN : 9781951631697
Cover design: Laura Waltje, Cover photo: Elizabeth A. Rosales (To be revealed)
About the Book:
At 23, newly an asylum seeker in the US, Rabha Ashry loses her mind.
Ashry grew up in the UAE under the watchful eyes of her Egyptian parents. The eldest daughter to her narcissistic mother and indifferent stepfather, she is surrounded by her sisters, and drawing up her own escape plans. She succeeds in fleeing the abuse and neglect of her stifling home life, and finds herself in Chicago on a search for a new, loving home. After moving across the world, she finds herself suffering from manic episode after manic episode, in and out of psych wards, and on too many pills that don’t work. Entrapped by her own mind.
In this searing, lyrical memoir, Ashry maps the geography of her survival. From the manic highs and crushing lows of bipolar disorder to the uncertain, frightening journey of seeking asylum, Hope You Still Love Me explores a queer, Bipolar, Arab woman’s search for acceptance and belonging, and what it takes to heal. A profound exploration of language and self, of cultural and personal identity, and the journey of exile and homecoming.
Home is a story. Home is a trap. Home is a way out. Navigating the tension between the family we are born into and the family we choose, Hope You Still Love Me is a meditation on what remains when we finally stop running. Home isn't a place you return to—it’s a place you fight to create.
About the Author:
Rabha Ashry is a memoirist and poet. Her debut memoir Hope You Still Love Me is forthcoming in 2027 with the Santa Fe Writers Project and has been shortlisted for their Literary Awards. She is the author of chapbooks Grief and Ecstasy, published by the African Poetry Book Fund, and Loving the Alien, published by Black Sunflowers Press. She has been awarded the Brunel International African Poetry Prize (now known as the Evaristo Prize for African Poetry). Ashry is Egyptian, by way of Abu Dhabi. She writes about immigration and the search for home. She lives in Chicago with her husband and chihuahua and teaches writing. She can be found at rabhaashry.com and on instagram @rabhaishere.