The Refugee Chronicles

An urgent and vital auto-fiction of exile, asylum and survival

The Refugee Chronicles is an auto-fictional novel which draws from the author’s personal experience as an asylum seeker in Ireland's Direct Provision system.

The Refugee Chronicles is an auto-fictional novel which draws from the author’s personal experience as an asylum seeker. In 2018, Evgeny Shtorn was forced to flee Russia due to the government’s hostile policies toward both queer sexualities and political dissent. The run for life and liberty brought him to the utmost edge of Western Europe: Ireland. Shtorn’s experience of claiming asylum in Ireland made him question clear-cut boundaries between the West and the East. Through this semi-fictional chronicle of a lengthy stay in the Direct Provision system, Shtorn traverses the questions, ambiguities, misgivings and transgressions that surround issues of queerness, migration, and the politics of human rights in contemporary Europe.

The book was originally written in Russian, and is expertly translated by Dr Alex Novitskaya. Shtorn’s story provies a vital counter-narrative to the current discourse surrounding migration and asylum seeking.