Selected for Common Reading:

Colleges & Universities
Georgia Tech University
McMurry University

Clarkston, Georgia, was a fading Southern town until it was designated a settlement center for refugees in the 1990s, becoming the first American home for scores of families in flight from the world’s war zones. The town also became home to Luma Mufleh, an American-educated woman from Jordan, who volunteered to coach a youth soccer program for Clarkston’s refugee children. They named themselves the Fugees.

Originating in an acclaimed series of front-page articles in the New York Times, this is the long-awaited story of the Fugees, played out against the backdrop of an American town that, without its consent, had become a vast experiment in getting along. Driven by the fast-paced narrative of a season that saw the team and its young players pushed to the brink, Outcasts United is a brilliantly reported, moving chronicle of a small town struggling to become a global community, the resilience and hope of a group of young refugees, and how we find home in a changing world.

"Not merely about soccer, St. John's book teaches readers about the social and economic difficulties of adapting to a new culture and the challenges facing a town with a new and disparate population. Despite their cultural and religious differences and the difficulty of adaptation, the Fugees came together to play soccer. This wonderful, poignant book is highly recommended..."
–Library Journal, starred review

A "richly detailed, uplifting account of a young Jordanian immigrant who created a soccer program in Georgia for young refugees from war-torn nations . . . educational and enriching."
– Kirkus Reviews

"St. John hits a trifecta . . . A fascinating and fast-moving account of big-picture politics, small-town sports, and some very memorable people."
–Booklist

"Inspiring...richly detailed...Deeply satisfying...a bighearted book."
–Shelf Awareness

"As St. John tells it, the Fugees’ story is something of a radical social experiment: a test case in 21st-century immigration and identity politics. But it’s also a deeply moving example of what men and women of goodwill can do."
–Very Short List

“A brilliant and empathetic depiction of our common quest for meaning and happiness. Warren St. John invites us into the lives of a community of refugees, their bewildered neighbors in a small town, and a Jordanian woman who not only coaches but also mentors, mothers, and inspires some remarkable boys, to create a heartwarming tale about the transformations that occur when our disparate lives connect.”
–Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone

“Truly unforgettable, Outcasts United offers a stirring lesson in the power of a single person to transform the lives of many. It’s an incisive window into the world ahead for all of us, where cultural diversity won’t be an ideal or a course requirement or a corporate initiative but a fact of life that has to be wrestled with and reconciled, if never quite resolved.”
–Reza Aslan, author of No God but God

 
Warren St. John is a reporter for The New York Times and the author of the national bestseller Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer.