Immigration Doesn’t Just Mean Coming To America. These 4 Books Are Good Reminders.

Rachel Martin for NPR offers recommendations on four immigration books.   The recommendations come from Vietnamese American author Ocean Vuong, whose novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous explores colonial history and his own personal experiences to tell a coming-of-age story.  On the eve of July 4, he recommended some books that highlight the immigrant experience, in America and around the world. 

Slow Lightning by Eduardo C. Corral

“This book particularly is haunted by the immigrant experience on the border. Corral comes from parents who are Mexican immigrants. And there’s a sensibility of, what is an American body that comes through migration and great loss? This book is filled with mourning and grief.”

Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin

“‘I am truly inspired by Qiu Miaojin. She’s a Taiwanese immigrant to Paris — and we often don’t think of the immigrant having, or the immigrant story having a sex life, a love life, a life of depression and deep existential angst. And Miaojin really positions in immigrant narrative in an existential wonder.”

The Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul

“The Enigma of Arrival, named after painting by [Giorgio de] Chirico, is exactly that. It’s that the two words here, `enigma’ and `arrival,’ never leave Naipaul as a writer. The estrangement of being in a new world and yet forever arriving, never truly having arrived. The immigrant process is one that is ongoing and filled with wonder, curiosity and a sense of loneliness.”

The Lover by Marguerite Duras

‘One of my goals was to kind of de-center America as the site of immigration — and we realise that immigration is a species-wide legacy. Everyone who has been human from time immemorial has had to make the decision about how to move and escape and make new routes. Duras’ The Lover is a perennial classic for me in this theme and others because this is a very unique situation of a failed colonial project.’

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