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In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!
Shop nowBeautiful Country
A Memoir of An Undocumented Childhood
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Narrator
Qian Julie Wang
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Length
9 hours 38 minutes
Language
English
Brought to you by Penguin.
'Hunger was a constant, reliable friend in Mei Guo. She came second only to loneliness.'
In China she was the daughter of professors. In Brooklyn her family is illegal.
Qian is just seven when she moves to America, the 'Beautiful Country', where she and her parents find that the roads of New York City are not paved with gold, but crushing fear and scarcity. Unable to speak English at first, Qian and her parents must work wherever they can to survive, all while she battles hunger and loneliness at school. Thus begins an extraordinary story that describes, in vivid colours, days labouring in sweatshops and sushi factories, nights scavenging the streets for furniture, and the terrifying moment when the family emerges from the shadows to seek emergency medical treatment for Qian's mother.
Qian Julie Wang's memoir is an unforgettable account of what it means to live under the perpetual threat of deportation and the small joys and sheer determination that kept her family afloat in a new land. Told from a child's perspective, in a voice that is intimate, poignant and startlingly lyrical, Beautiful Country is the story of a girl who learns first to live - and then escape - an invisible life.
© Qian Julie Wang 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021
Qian Julie Wang is a graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College and is managing partner of a law firm dedicated to advocating for education, disability, and civil rights. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times and the Washington Post, among other major U.S. publications. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their two rescue dogs. Beautiful Country is her first book.
Qian Julie Wang is a graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College and is managing partner of a law firm dedicated to advocating for education, disability, and civil rights. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times and the Washington Post, among other major U.S. publications. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their two rescue dogs. Beautiful Country is her first book.