I started reading The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen on the plane on the way to Viet Nam and read a couple of the stories in the book while we were traveling. I put it aside when we got back and didn’t do any reading for a while, then picked it up and gobbled up the rest of the book. The same author wrote the excellent Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Sympathizer, which I read a couple years ago.

Viet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam and raised in America. These stories about the immigrant experience reside in that curious place between old world and new. They’re beautifully written, just a little sparse, gently funny, very perceptive.

Recommended.