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The Refugees

Viet Thanh Nguyen

Ages 15+

Readers rate it 3.8 (49 on Hardcover)

184 pages · Released Feb 7, 2017

Content report card

The Refugees parent’s guide: what’s inside

High confidence

What it offers

A note for parents

This is a literary short story collection by a Pulitzer Prize winner exploring the Vietnamese refugee experience and migration between cultures. While beautifully written and ultimately hopeful, the stories contain mature themes including war's aftermath, dementia, identity crises, and complex emotional trauma that require emotional maturity to process. The collection includes LGBTQ characters and themes as part of its exploration of belonging and displacement, and occasional mild language and references to sexuality, making it better suited for older teens and adults.

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From the publisher

"Beautiful and heartrending" fiction set in Vietnam and America from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer (Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker) In these powerful stories, written over a period of twenty years and set in both Vietnam and America, Viet Thanh Nguyen paints a vivid portrait of the experiences... "Beautiful and heartrending" fiction set in Vietnam and America from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer (Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker) In these powerful stories, written over a period of twenty years and set in both Vietnam and America, Viet Thanh Nguyen paints a vivid portrait of the experiences of people leading lives between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. This incisive collection by the National Book Award finalist and celebrated author of The Committed gives voice to the hopes and expectations of people making life-changing decisions to leave one country for another, and the rifts in identity, loyalties, romantic relationships, and family that accompany relocation. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her with a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half-sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will, the stories are a captivating testament to the dreams and hardships of migration. "Terrific." — Chicago Tribune "An important and incisive book." — The Washington Post "An urgent, wonderful collection." —NPR

Shelved under

  • Fiction
  • hopeful
  • War
  • LGBTQ

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ISBN 9780802189356 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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