The Book of Unknown Americans
- 2 May 2019
- 9781782111221
- £9.99
- 304 pp
- 129×198mm
- 5 Jun 2014
- 9781782111214
- £7.99
- 304 pp
In a few words
A deeply moving novel about the many different voices of the immigrant experience, inspired by the story of the author’s father
In a few words
Inspired by the story of her father, Cristina Henríquez has crafted a deeply moving novel about the many different voices of the immigrant experience, and one family in particular.
The Book of Unknown Americans is filled with the fiercest kinds of love - of a boy for a beautiful girl, of stricken parents for an injured daughter, of an immigrant community for an impossible America. In this powerful novel, Cristina Henríquez gives us unforgettable characters, whose destinies are shaped by forces - senseless, random, political - far beyond their control, and yet whose resilience yields a most profound and unexpected kind of beauty
Ruth Ozeki
author of A Tale for the Time BeingThe strength of the book is in the quiet details . . . lit by sharp observations
The Book of Unknown Americans is filled with the fiercest kinds of love - of a boy for a beautiful girl, of stricken parents for an injured daughter, of an immigrant community for an impossible America. In this powerful novel, Cristina Henríquez gives us unforgettable characters, whose destinies are shaped by forces - senseless, random, political - far beyond their control, and yet whose resilience yields a most profound and unexpected kind of beauty
Ruth Ozeki
author of A Tale for the Time BeingCristina Henríquez's novel is a triumph not just of storytelling, but of American storytelling, a novel whose breadth and power blow open any traditional definition of 'American.' Henríquez pulls us into the lives of her characters with such mastery that we hang onto them just as fiercely as they hang onto one another, and their dreams. This passionate, powerful novel will stay with you long after you've turned the final page
Ben Fountain
author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime WalkMore about
the book
When Alma Rivera arrives in Delaware she is full of the promise and possibilities of her new home. Hope that her daughter Maribel will be helped by the specialist support US education can provide, and faith that her husband Arturo will flourish in a country that celebrates the hard-working. But life without status, money, family and friends soon becomes unmanageable and violent.
Told through a range of perspectives written with compassion and grace, Cristina Henríquez gives voice to the displaced and the unknown, and shows what it means to uproot your life in search of something better.
More about
the book
At the heart of this remarkable novel are Arturo and Alma Rivera, who have left their home in Mexico in the hope of getting help for their daughter Maribel, who has been in a terrible accident. They settle in the small town of Newark, Delaware, so she can attend a special school, but are soon frustrated by the difficulties of living in such an unfamiliar place, unable to speak or understand the language, and cut off from the friends and family they have left so far behind.
Soon they learn that their apartment complex is filled with other immigrants like themselves; people from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Paraguay, Peru. They have come here for different reasons: love, money, political freedom, but they have all faced the challenges – both practical and spiritual – of immigrating to a country where opportunity, as well as discrimination, is part of their daily lives. Ultimately, their different stories come together in a devastating tragedy that befalls the Riveras, but affects the entire building.
The struggles of this small community are brought to life with great imagination and grace. THE BOOK OF UNKNOWN AMERICANS is at once specific and universal, telling the stories of the displaced and unknown, the untold stories of our times.
A striking original . . . With a simple, unadorned prose that, in the end, rises to the level of poetry, Henríquez achieves the seemingly impossible: Without a trace of sentimentality, without an iota of self-indulgence or dogma, she tells us about coming to America
Cristina Henríquez's novel is a triumph not just of storytelling, but of American storytelling, a novel whose breadth and power blow open any traditional definition of 'American.' Henríquez pulls us into the lives of her characters with such mastery that we hang onto them just as fiercely as they hang onto one another, and their dreams. This passionate, powerful novel will stay with you long after you've turned the final page
Ben Fountain
author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime WalkGripping, memorable . . . A novel that can both make you think and break your heart
A sweeping and ambitious work, with the point of view shifting among a dozen different characters
Timely . . . It is Maribel and Mayor's star-crossed love that lends this novel an emotional urgency, and it's the story of their families that gives us a visceral sense of the magnetic allure of America, and the gaps so many immigrants find here between expectations and reality . . . genuinely moving
Throughout, the book is lit by sharp observations . . . and warmed by Henríquez's obvious affection for her characters
Sandra Newman
GuardianA quiet, unassuming novel that ravels slowly, quickens without warning, spins into high drama and leaves you in thrall to its vivid characters and its author's sure hand . . . a deeply stirring story
Henríquez's powerful novel captures readers with the quiet beauty of her characters and their profoundly rendered experiences as immigrants in America. Following nine families who arrived in the States from South and Central America, Henríquez has crafted a novel that is inspiring, tragic, brave, and unforgettable
