
Critic Reviews
Good
Based on 13 reviews on

A 2019 NPR Staff Pick
A timely argument for why the United States and the West would benefit from accepting more immigrants
"A meticulously researched and deeply felt corrective . . . laying bare the origins of mass migration in searing clarity . . . Well argued, cathartic." --Lauren Markham, The New York Times Book Review
"Urgent and impassioned . . . [written] with scathing wit . . . As the country heads into the 2020 presidential election, Mehta's moving, cogent book can help us find a way forward." --Vanessa Hua, San Francisco Chronicle "There are many mic-drop moments and eminently quotable lines . . . [This Land Is Our Land] is a blistering argument that earns its place in this emotional debate. In a news climate dominated by opponents of immigration, Mehta brings personal, postcolonial, and global anguish to a broader American readership." --Bilal Qureshi, The Washington Post "[Mehta] turns himself, in effect, into a one-man witness-bearing machine. It is harrowing, heartbreaking, detailed work that does what it sets out to do: illuminate the predicament of specific persons in a universal ethical light . . . Mehta's argument . . . is procedurally radical." --Joseph O'Neill, The New York Review of Books "[This Land Is Our Land] is a book shaped by the nuances of borders: of who crosses them and why, who drew them and what that set into motion . . . As narrator, [Mehta] emerges as comprehensively analytical and trenchant, full of pointed epigrams" --Gaiutra Bahadur, The New Republic "There are few literary voices today who explore the intricacies of human migration better than Suketu Mehta . . . Mehta delivers an emotional, timely polemic railing against this trend of fear, discrimination and hatred that has gripped so many countries, especially ours . . . Pulling from history, personal experiences and intimate profiles, Mehta examines the backlash to immigration, what's behind it and why we have good reasons to be hopeful about the future." --Sarojini Seupersad, BookPage "[An] authoritative and undeniable argument . . . Mehta fills in the blanks. He tells a bloody, traumatic story, and one no Western reader will feel proud of, though there can also be a strange comfort in understanding the logic of the present. History might be the best weapon against fear." --Suzy Hansen, Bookforum "Mehta condenses complicated histories to make the case that immigration is (and should be) a form of reparations for what has been wrought upon the Global South. The histories and numbers will enlighten and enrage but the personal stories Mehta collects will rip your heart out." --JR Ramakrishnan, Electric Literature "Suketu Mehta's This Land is Our Land begins with an anecdote about his grandfather--an immigrant well-versed in Britain's colonial experiments--who, when confronted in London in the '80s by a fellow Briton asking 'Why are you in my country?' responds: 'Because we are the creditors. You took all our wealth. Now we have come to collect.' It's the thesis of the book but just the barest hint of the argument that Mehta will marshal by the time he's finished presenting his sweeping history of how solidly our world has been built by immigrants." --Ramtin Arablouei, NPR