"No matter where we are, we have nothing but stories."
★The work of Nguyen Thanh Viet, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Sympathizer", a collection of short stories that took 20 years to be published.
★A book written for refugees around the world. Refugee-born writer Nguyen Thanh Viet writes about ghosts, homes and memories, examining the trauma and crisis of war
★The New York Times' annual book of note, recommended by Bill Gates of the year
★Diverse story characters and plots, individually showing the different situations and hardships of refugee groups
"Refugees" is Nguyen Thanh Viet's latest short story collection, consisting of 7 short stories in total. Compared with "The Sympathizer", the subject matter of "Refugees" is more everyday, without heavy narratives about ideological systems and the fate of the country. It mostly focuses on the lives of ordinary people in the United States and tells about the bonds between people. The characters and plots of the stories are very different. For example, "The Woman with Black Eyes" tells the story of a knife hunter who encounters ghosts, while "Motherland" tells the story of the second-generation immigrants' experience of returning to their homeland in Vietnam.
From the book, you can see the growth experience of the author Nguyen Thanh Viet, as well as the results of his more than ten years of field research on immigrant identity recognition. Each work is a naked revelation and restrained expression of complex emotions, examining the trauma of war, the crisis of self-perception, and the preciousness and fragility of memory. Overall, most of the characters in "Refugees" are in an "uncomfortable place" and the emotions they want to express are very complex, including nostalgia for their homeland, the luck and misfortune of surviving a catastrophe, the tenderness between couples and lovers, and strong cultural conflicts... However, the author's writing is relatively restrained, and he often uses a self-deprecating tone to describe the different experiences of fellow refugees.
Reader comments
The story of the book "Refugee" is very diverse, each story is very deep and the characters are very vivid. I especially like the story "The Woman with Black Eyes". The plot of a knife-catcher and a ghost is very attractive. Moreover, I can feel the author's concern for refugees and thinking about human nature from the book, which made me very inspired. I recommend you read this book too!
The story of the book "Refugee" is very diverse, each story is very deep and the characters are very vivid. I especially like the story "The Woman with Black Eyes". The plot of a knife-catcher and a ghost is very attractive. Moreover, I can feel the author's concern for refugees and thinking about human nature from the book, which made me very inspired. I recommend you read this book too!