Longing for Belonging

Longing for Belonging is a deeply personal memoir that traces a journey across continents, generations, and identities in search of home. Blending storytelling, photography, and design, Nayra Aly invites readers into an intimate exploration of displacement, family, racism, healing, and the universal desire to belong.

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, and raised between cultures, Aly’s life unfolds through a series of vivid memories and reflections that traverse Egypt, Italy, the United States, and Sweden. Through poetic language and powerful imagery, she revisits moments of love and loss, fear and resilience, culminating in a return to Egypt, where the search for belonging becomes a path toward forgiveness and self-acceptance.

Designed as a bilingual book in English and Arabic, Longing for Belonging meets in the middle, two reading directions converging in a symbolic gesture of reconciliation and return.