National Book Critics Circle Finalist
Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize
"Dina Nayeri's powerful writing confronts issues that are key to the refugee experience."—Viet Thanh Nguyen
From the author of
The Ungrateful Refugee
—finalist for the
Los Angeles Times
Book Prize and the
Kirkus
Prize—
Who Gets Believed?
is a groundbreaking book about persuasion and performance that asks unsettling questions about lies, truths, and the difference between being believed and being dismissed in situations spanning asylum interviews, emergency rooms, consulting jobs, and family life
Why are honest asylum seekers dismissed as liars?
Former refugee and award-winning author Dina Nayeri begins with this question, turning to shocking and illuminating case studies in this book, which grows into a reckoning with our culture’s views on believability. From persuading a doctor that she’d prefer a C-section to learning to “bullshit gracefully” at McKinsey to struggling, in her personal life, to believe her troubled brother-in-law, Nayeri explores an aspect of our society that is rarely held up to the light.
For readers of David Grann, Malcolm Gladwell, and Atul Gawande,
is a book as deeply personal as it is profound in its reflections on morals, language, human psychology, and the unspoken social codes that determine how we relate to one another.