Tag: immigrant

Interviews, Podcast

Inside Simon Han’s suburban dreamscape

by vitcavage1 Comment on Inside Simon Han’s suburban dreamscape
Inside Simon Han’s suburban dreamscape

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Simon Han’s debut book Nights When Nothing Happened tells you exactly what the book is about. Except, “nothing happening” is in the eye of the beholder. The novel, about a Chinese immigrant family living in Plano, Texas, is as equally quiet as it is thrilling. The project started as a short story about a young girl who begins sleepwalking that spiraled into one of the best novels of the year.

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Interviews

C Pam Zhang struck Gold with her debut novel

by vitcavage1 Comment on C Pam Zhang struck Gold with her debut novel
C Pam Zhang struck Gold with her debut novel

C Pam Zhang explores immigration in How Much of These Hills Is Gold, a coming-of-age story of two newly orphaned siblings set during the Gold Rush. It takes bits and pieces of topics you might be familiar with, but stretches those ideas in new ways. The book explores family secrets and young ambition in the face of desperation.

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Interviews

Joanne Ramos takes readers to ‘The Farm’ – an unintentional dystopian novel with relevant themes

by vitcavage2 Comments on Joanne Ramos takes readers to ‘The Farm’ – an unintentional dystopian novel with relevant themes
Joanne Ramos takes readers to ‘The Farm’ – an unintentional dystopian novel with relevant themes

When The Farm first landed at my doorstep, I was easily intrigued by what Joanne Ramos pieced together. From pregnancy rights to immigration, her novel – tinged with dystopian undertones – felt urgent as political nominees began to announce their candidacy for 2020.

Even though I expected to love it, the novel knocked me out. In her debut, which isn’t about politics, but about human rights on a larger scale, Ramos created a must read page-turner that offered readers an insight to what is happening now as well as what can happen in the future.

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Interviews

Inside the immigration experience of Melissa Rivero and ‘The Affairs of the Falcóns’

by vitcavage1 Comment on Inside the immigration experience of Melissa Rivero and ‘The Affairs of the Falcóns’
Inside the immigration experience of Melissa Rivero and ‘The Affairs of the Falcóns’

Melissa Rivero was a lawyer in New York City unsatisfied with how her career was not fulfilling her soul’s needs. She knew she wanted something different when she started writing scenes influenced by an incident that happened to her mother.

The result became The Affairs of the Falcóns, a study into how immigration policies effect us all. The characters in the book are Peruvian, just like Rivero and her family. However, the family’s story in her debut novel is not a retelling of her life. Instead, she took information from her mother’s life and reimagined it into a bigger story that reaches beyond her singular experience.

I spoke with the lawyer-turned-writer about Peru, growing us as an “other,” and how the Falcóns came to be.

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