The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen, called on 17 fellow refugee writers from across the globe to shed light on their experiences, and the result is The Displaced, a powerful dispatch from the individual lives behind current headlines. Today the world faces an enormous refugee crisis: 68.5 million people fleeing persecution and conflict from Myanmar to South Sudan and Syria, a figure worse than the flight of Jewish and other Europeans during World War II and beyond anything the world has seen in this generation. Yet in the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries with the means to welcome refugees, anti-immigration politics and fear seem poised to shut the door. Even for readers seeking to help, the sheer scale of the problem renders the experience of refugees hard to comprehend. Viet Nguyen, called “one of our great chroniclers of displacement” (Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker), brings together writers originally from Mexico, Bosnia, Iran, Afghanistan, Soviet Ukraine, Hungary, Chile, Ethiopia, and elsewhere to make their stories heard. They are formidable in their own right—MacArthur Genius grant recipients, National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalists, filmmakers, speakers, lawyers, professors, and The New Yorker contributors—and they are all refugees, many as children arriving in London and Toronto, Oklahoma and Minnesota, South Africa and Germany. Their 17 contributions are as diverse as their own lives have been, and yet hold just as many themes in common. Reyna Grande questions the line between “official” refugee and “illegal” immigrant, chronicling the disintegration of the family forced to leave her behind; Fatima Bhutto visits Alejandro Iñárritu’s virtual reality border crossing installation “Flesh and Sand”; Aleksandar Hemon recounts a gay Bosnian’s answer to his question, “How did you get here?”; Thi Bui offers two uniquely striking graphic panels; David Bezmozgis writes about uncovering new details about his past and attending a hearing for a new refugee; and Hmong writer Kao Kalia Yang recalls the courage of children in a camp in Thailand.“There is no single refugee story, and as the editor of The Displaced, a collection of refugee writers exploring and reflecting on their experiences, Viet Thanh Nguyen gives these stories room to breath and unfurl.” —MillionsList of contributors: Joseph Azam David Bezmozgis Fatima Bhutto Thi Bui Ariel Dorfman Lev Golinkin Reyna Grande Meron Hadero Aleksandar Hemon Joseph Kertes Porochista Khakpour Marina Lewycka Maaza Mengiste Dina Nayeri Vu Tran Novuyo Rosa Tshuma Kao Kalia Yang
Viet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam in 1971. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, he and his family fled to the United States. The author of three books, Nguyen is the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and professor of English and American studies and ethnicity at University of Southern California. He lives in Los Angeles.
Table of Contents
Introduction Viet Thanh Nguyen 11
The Road Chris Abani 23
Last, First, Middle Joseph Azam 31
Common Story David Bezmozgis 43
Flesh and Sand Fatima Bhutto 51
Perspective and What Gets Lost Thi Bui 61
How Succulent Food Defeated Trump's Wall Before It Has Been Built Ariel Doreman 67
Guests of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa Lev Golinkin 75
The Parent Who Stays Reyna Grande 81
To Walk in Their Shoes Meron Hadero 91
God's Fate Aleksandar Hemon 99
Second Country Joseph Kertes 113
13 Ways of Being an Immigrant Porochista Khakpour 121
Refugees and Exiles Marina Lewvcka 129
This Is What the Journey Does Maaza Mengiste 137
The Ungrateful Refugee Dina Nayeri 145
Am I a Refugee? Raja Shehadeh 159
A Refugee Again Vu Tran 165
New Lands, New Selves Novuyo Rosa Tshuma 173
Refugee Children: The Yang Warriors Kao Kalia Yang 189