08/24/2020
Hmong-American memoirist Yang (The Latehomecomer) tells the stories of fellow refugees who have ended up in Minnesota in this lyrical and frequently harrowing account. Her profile subjects include her uncle, who fought for the CIA in Laos only to be left behind when the U.S. pulled out of the country; a Bosnian war survivor who worked for an American aid organization at a refugee camp in Sudan; a young Karen man who fled Burma as his people were systematically murdered by the government; and an Iraqi woman whose grandfather was killed by Saddam Hussein’s soldiers. Through the story of a Vietnamese-American chef restoring his family’s restaurant, Yang also offers a moving portrait of University Ave. in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Once anchored by Henry Ford’s manufacturing plants, by the 1970s University Ave. had been left behind to drug dealers, gangs, and “immigrants and refugees.” Yang details how a wave of “small mom and pop businesses” began opening along the avenue, transforming it “from an abandoned, dying street into a vibrant enclave of diverse businesses.” This heartfelt and exquisitely written account shines a poignant light on the immigration debate. (Oct.)
Kao Kalia Yang has long used her own voice and refugee story to create transcendent literature. With Somewhere in the Unknown World, she brings us many voices whose powerful, individual tales converge in one state to create a prism of humanity. In a time when the term ‘refugee’ is so often flat and faceless, this is an essential book of poetic beauty and social witness.”
—Sarah Smarsh, author of Heartland
"Kao Kalia Yang raises a mirror to her home state of Minnesota and a kaleidoscope of refugee stories comes tumbling out. This is a book that burns with personal accounts of survival. But it’s also a reminder that we, as a nation, will never know where we’re going until we understand where each and every one of us has come from."
—Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem
"As borders are closing against refugees and derogatory stereotypes are promulgated by nativists, Kao Kalia Yang’s delicate, respectful book is especially welcome. With masterful concision, Yang presents these refugees’ lives with a poignant honesty that puts prejudice to shame and opens doors to the heart."
—Helen Benedict, author of Wolf Season
“Somewhere in the Unknown World is an offering from the heart, a memoir of hope. You do not just read the stories in this beautiful work, you belong to them. You fear for the children when the rebels attack. You weep for the sisters left on the other side of the river. You smile at a family reunited after too many years apart. These are the unseen lives of our neighbors, drivers, receptionists, and classmates, and this book should be required reading at a time when refugees are often misunderstood. Yang’s is a voice we all need to hear more."
—Kirsty Gladfelter, Senior Director, International Rescue Committee
“With grace and empathy, Yang reaches to the heart of each of these fourteen tales of refugees in Minnesota and connects them to her own past and future. Reading this book is like watching an explosion of texture and color as ordinary people place their formative stories in the hands of an artist and fellow refugee who weaves them into a single elegant tapestry.”
—Dina Nayeri, The Ungrateful Refugee
"Exceptional . . . This is an important collection of voices and experiences."
—Ms Magazine
"A work of technical as well as empathetic mastery . . . The stories are as powerful as they are unique, and Yang makes the wise decision to let her subjects express themselves. . . . Yang's delicate touch allows us to see what is right in front of us: luck."
—Kirkus (starred review)
"Affecting . . . Yang offers glimpses of lives before, of escapes, of stopovers, of arrivals, of transformation. . . These voices . . . provide an intimate window into once faraway lives, now intertwined together in a community they call home."
—Shelf Awareness
"Lyrical . . . This heartfelt and exquisitely written account shines a poignant light on the immigration debate."
—Publishers Weekly
09/01/2020
Yang (What God Is Honored Here?) gathers a collection centering on the experiences of refugees living in Minnesota, and mostly residing in the Twin Cities. The contributors have a vast range of traumatic experiences exiting their home countries and finding asylum in the United States. The first section focuses on refugees who immigrated as children; food is often the most visceral memory of one's home country, with ingredients and scents evocatively recalled. Many details are heart-rending, including the decision for Shia children to be homeschooled owing to facing harassment in the wake of 9/11. The Twin Cities has the largest concentration of Hmong refugees in the world, and many writers recalled swimming across the Mekong River at night to slip into the refugee camps in Thailand. Fong Lee, a Laotian immigrant, is haunted by the memory of being unable to help two sisters who stood on the shore of Laos, receding in view as he and his family crammed onto a raft. VERDICT This title joins a growing body of vital refugee literature, including Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Displaced and Dina Nayeri's The Ungrateful Refuge.—Barrie Olmstead, Lewiston P.L., ID
★ 2020-08-30
A “collective refugee memoir” that serves as an object lesson in the utility of creative nonfiction.
In the prologue, Yang describes wanting to write this book years ago but feeling like she was not yet ready as a writer. Whether she was correct in her self-assessment then, she’s certainly up to the job now. This is a work of technical as well as empathetic mastery. The narrative consists of a series of stories of refugees who have ended up in Minnesota, Yang’s home state. (The author is a Hmong refugee who was born in a Thai refugee camp after her parents fled Laos.) Her subjects’ origins are global but cluster primarily in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. The stories are as powerful as they are unique, and Yang makes the wise decision to get out of the way and let her subjects express themselves. For example, Awo talks about her weekly calls home to Somalia: “Every Saturday, in those conversations, they become a full family: a mother, a father, and their children, voices celebrating their gratitude for each other’s safety and small successes. Each is reminded of the immense love in their lives, a love that survives unimaginable distance.” Throughout, the author’s straight-ahead, declarative sentences can’t conceal that her presence is all over this book. Her immersively descriptive language is reminiscent of her two previous memoirs, The Latehomecomer and The Song Poet, and her delicate touch allows us to see what is right in front of us: luck. If we are not refugees, we might have been. If our lives have been relatively stable, they may not remain so. “The people in this book are people going through this storm with us all on this very night,” she writes near the end. She is addressing her own children, but she is speaking to the rest of us as well.
A potent lesson in empathy that is all the more powerful for never presenting itself as a lesson.
