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Between Worlds

An Expat’s Quest for Belonging

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Between Worlds

By: Inga Aksamit
Narrated by: Elizabeth Liang
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What happens when a child grows up between worlds, never fully belonging anywhere? In this compelling memoir, Inga Aksamit takes listeners on a journey across four continents as she navigates life as the daughter of an international engineer during the turbulent 1960s and '70s.

From age four, when she nearly loses her mother on a Tokyo train platform, through harrowing military evacuations from Pakistan and Bangladesh, Inga's childhood is marked by constant change and adaptation. She attends nine schools before high school, learning to make friends quickly while knowing each goodbye might be permanent. In Peru, she faces life-threatening illness while her father works in the remote Sechura Desert. Back in California, she struggles to fit into suburban life, carrying the invisible scars of her expatriate youth.

Through it all, she grapples with questions of identity and belonging. Is home the place where her doll Chuz sits on her bed, or is it somewhere deeper within? How does a child process trauma when the adults around her treat upheaval as adventure? And how does that child grow into an adult capable of lasting relationships?

Written with unflinching honesty and vivid detail, Between Worlds captures both the privilege and the pain of a Third Culture Kid's experience. Aksamit's story illuminates the complexity of growing up across cultures while offering hope for finding connection and belonging. This intimate memoir will resonate with anyone who has ever felt caught between identities or searched for a place to call home.

©2025 The Publishing Circle (P)2025 Inga Aksamit
Cultural & Regional Women
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Before package holidays and wide-bodied jets, international travel was the preserve of people like Inga’s parents, who earned their living abroad. Inga’s dad was an irrigation engineer, working on projects across the developing world, in countries, some of which were politically stable and others, which were so volatile, that they would be on the Do Not Travel list. It was a time of family-unfriendly employment policies, where children had to fit in around the demands of their parent’s employer and vastly different to today. This story of a child growing up in five countries, with all the upheaval that entails, trying to find their place in the world, really resonated with this reader, who belongs to that same tribe as the author—that of a Third Culture Kid.

A must-listen for anyone interested in expat life memoirs and coming-of-age stories.

A coming-of-age memoir with a difference

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