Immigrant Voices / Xánath Caraza en L.A.

As debates about immigration rage across America’s political spectrum, twenty-first-century immigrant literature both reflects and shapes the shifting definition of American identity. Immigrant Voices: 21st Century Stories, the newest publication by the Great Books Foundation, speaks to this debate by gathering the work of such contemporary authors as Junot Díaz, Edwidge Danticat, Reese Okyong Kwon, Aleksandar Hemon, Daniel Alarcón, and many others, four of them MacArthur Foundation Fellows.

Coedited by award-winning author Achy Obejas and cultural studies scholar Megan Bayles, this anthology showcases fresh perspectives on the immigrant experience by writers from around the world. It addresses the perennial questions about society and the individual that the authors of the Great Books have pondered for centuries.

In keeping with the mission of the Great Books Foundation, Immigrant Voices was created to prompt discussion of significant issues and ideas. These eighteen short stories speak to the experiences, concerns, and aspirations of those who have left their homeland for a new life in the United States:

Letting Go to America
      M. Evelina Galang

Absence
      Daniel Alarcón

Mother the Big
      Porochista Khakpour

The Bees, Part 1
      Aleksandar Hemon

Grandmother’s Garden
      Meena Alexander

Otravida, Otravez
      Junot Díaz

Wal-Mart Has Plantains
      Sefi Atta

Fischer vs. Spassky
      Lara Vapnyar

The Stations of the Sun
      Reese Okyong Kwon

Echo
      Laila Lalami

No Subject
      Carolina De Robertis

The Science of Flight
      Yiyun Li

Hot-Air Balloons
      Edwidge Danticat

Home Safe
      Emma Ruby-Sachs

SJU–ATL–DTW (San Juan–Atlanta–Detroit)
      Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes

Diógenes
      Pablo Helguera

Bamboo
      Eduardo Halfon

Encrucijada
      Roberto G. Fernández

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THIS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, IN L.A.: