A raw and unfiltered debut, Rain and Embers explores far-reaching themes of migration, trauma, abuse, racism, religion, philosophy, intimacy, love, loss, forgiveness, and redemption. Ali Nuri was born to a Shi’a family in the southern marshlands of Iraq at the height of the Iran-Iraq War. As a persecuted religious sect, they were attacked by the tyrannical government under Saddam Hussein and fled across the desert to escape. He spent his childhood reeling from the trauma of being uprooted and forced to migrate. Ali survived four grueling years in a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia before being granted asylum by the United States at the age of 7. Trading one oppression for another, the pervasive feeling of alienation drew him to writing as a means of expression. Equal parts intimate self-portrait and universal rumination, Rain and Embers paints a vivid picture of life as an Iraqi refugee in post-9/11 America.