I love short stories. They seem to be incredibly difficult to write, to put everything in just a few pages and connect to the reader as well. Done well, I find them incredible and that was one of the first things I noticed when I started reading this collection, the writing is fantastic. Excellent writing itself makes me want to trust the writer, puts me at ease, surely he knows what he is doing, he writes so well? Then the content, the situations presented have to draw one in, present a complet...

In trying to express how I felt about Viet Thanh Nguyen's exquisite new story collection, The Refugees , I decided to turn to one of the foremost philosophers of our age, Keanu Reeves. The issue of immigration is definitely a hot button here in the United States right now, with intense emotional fervor expressed by individuals on both sides. Luckily, Nguyen doesn't stake out a political position in his collection. Instead, these beautifully written stories look at issues that affec...

!! NOW AVAILABLE !!Following up his 2015 novel, The Sympathizer which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Viet Thanh Nguyen has gathered together a collection of his short stories for The Refugees. Nguyen quotes from two sources in his Preface, Roberto Bolano’s introduction to Antwerp "I wrote this book for the ghosts, who, because they're outside of time, are the only ones with time." And a small piece of James Fenton’s poem A German Requiem ”It is not your memories which haunt you. It is

I’m making a concentrated effort to read Vietnamese writers because I’m Vietnamese and want to get in touch with that part of my identity, so that in large part is what motivated me to pick up The Refugees. Overall, the collection did not disappoint. The stories, while definitely focused on the lives of Vietnamese refugees, mostly living in California, also revolved around common life experiences: falling in and out of love, disappointing your parents, the period of life when your child takes ca...

I fell in love with Viet Thanh Nguyen way of storytelling with his 2016 Pulitzer winning debut novel, The Sympathizer. You bet I wanted more, and that led to Refugees, a collection of eight Viet Thanh Nguyen's short stories which he originally published between 2006 and 2011, with Vietnam's displaced citizens taking center stage in most of the stories. ❝ She wondered what, if anything, she knew about love. Not much, perhaps, but enough to know that what she would do for him now she would

The Refugees Viet Thanh Nguyen - The Author★★★★ 4 StarsI received a free advance e-copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, thank you!***********************************************"You have to understand, no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land."From the poem "Home" by Somali-British poet Warsan ShireReading this highly gratifying collection of stories felt incredibly auspicious, although not necessarily in a go...

After a spate of so so books, The Refugees reminded me of what makes me love a work of fiction: excellent writing, creative story telling, and complex human emotions. The Refugees is a slim book of short stories, but it really hit the mark. For the most part, the common thread between the stories is the experience of Vietnamese refugees who have moved to the US. Many stories focus on complex parent-child dynamics or dynamics within couples. Many characters have memories of the extraordinary leng...

Viet Thanh Nguyen's 8-story collection in The Refugees focuses on Vietnamese refugees in complex, interesting and sometimes surprising ways. What's clear is that the immigrant experience is as unique as each individual. As characters move between families, cultures and identities, the pull of what's left behind or forgotten shapes them as much as experiences in their new culture. Memory thus plays a large role in the stories, no more so than in "I'd Love You to Want Me." In this story, a wife de...

"I am a refugee, an American, and a human being, which is important to proclaim, as there are many who think these identities cannot be reconciled." – Viet Thanh NguyenThe above quote comes from an essay included at the end of this collection of eight short stories by the author of The Sympathizer, the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I haven’t read his full length novel yet, but have intended to ever since I first saw it appear on my Goodreads news feed. I am even more inclined to do so now, af...

Viet Thanh Nguyen, 2016 Pulitzer Prize winner of "The Sympathizer", has written a collection of short stories -- 8 total in "The Refugees". Viet says:"I wrote this book for ghosts, who, because they're outside of time, are the only ones with time". This quote makes more sense the deeper you dive into each story. Viet is not talking 'voodoo'.... or scary ghosts. He knows about immigration first hand. He was born in Viet Nam, then came to the United States as a refugee in 1975 with his family. The...

My first foray into the short story land and it was quite captivating right from the start when the writer meets his ghost brother. This is a story of refugees. Their ghosts who have been kept alive until their stories have been told. Their struggles coming to America and the challenges they faced; as well as their return trips back to the homeland where memories and reality are no longer congruent. The series of vignettes are profound. The writing, descriptively vivid. 4****. Missed the 5er bec...

I really enjoyed this book of short stories about Vietnamese refugees and their lives here in America, and some parts taking place in Vietnam.This was both dark, and sometimes funny, and all of them about love and family.My favorite was "I'd love you to want me", but they were all very good. Thank you to NetGalley, Grove Atlantic, and Viet Thanh Nguyen for the ARC.

This is such an exciting time in American literature that we can enjoy the gorgeous language and careful craftsmanship of really very fine short stories and novels in English in the American tradition but from traditionally silent participants in our nation’s pageant: immigrants and people of color. These voices began speaking up some time ago, but if you looked at the award lists until recently, people of color weren’t often on them. That has changed, and right now, before cultures become indis...

Confession: my knowledge of the Vietnam war is somewhat muddy and confused, most of it sourced from American movies, and a few Australian ones, and we all know how one sided they are.The Refugees is a collection of eight short stories made cohesive by the fact the protagonists in all of them are Vietnamese refugees and their immediate families. The stories are diverse and extremely powerful. The writing is simple, but not simplistic. It's economical, without fancy language flourishes, yet it pac...