In the Country, Mia Alvar
In the Country, Mia Alvar
List: $22.95 | Sale: $16.07
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In the Country
Stories

Author: Mia Alvar

Narrator: Nancy Wu, Don Castro

Unabridged: 13 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/16/2015

Synopsis

These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere—and sometimes turning back again.A pharmacist living in New York smuggles drugs to his ailing father in Manila, only to discover alarming truths about his family and his past. A Filipina teacher drawn to a special pupil finds, to her surprise, that she is questioning her own marriage. A college student leans on her brother, a laborer in Saudi Arabia, to support her writing ambitions, without realizing that his is the life truly made for fiction. And in the title story, a journalist and a nurse face an unspeakable trauma amid the political turmoil of the Philippines in the 1970s and ’80s.In the Country speaks to the heart of everyone who has ever searched for a place to call home. From teachers to housemaids, from mothers to sons, Alvar’s powerful debut collection explores the universal experiences of loss, displacement, and the longing to connect across borders both real and imagined. Deeply compassionate and richly felt, In the Country marks the emergence of a formidable new writer.

About Mia Alvar

Mia Alvar was born in Manila and grew up in Bahrain and New York City. Her work has appeared in One Story, the Missouri Review, FiveChapters, the Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Yaddo, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. A graduate of Harvard College and Columbia University, she lives in New York City.

About Nancy Wu

Nancy Wu has narrated audiobooks since 2004, winning three AudioFile Earphones Awards. A New York theater, television, and film actor, she has recorded in studios all over the world—from Italy to Switzerland to Thailand. Her credits include Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Hope & Faith, All My Children, Made for Each Other, and the Oscar-nominated film Frozen River.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jenna

I love this! So much to look at!......more

Quotes

“Alvar’s…diamond prose sparkles so brightly and cuts so deeply. Each marvelous story shows us a facet of the Philippines at a distance…and how our ties to the past can be simultaneously tenuous and tenacious.” Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author

“Summer’s standout debut is Mia Alvar’s peripatetic story collection, In the Country, which captures a global village of voices—a blue-eyed fashion model in Manila; a nanny in gilded Bahrain—with a ventriloquist’s ease.” Vogue

“Through careful, delicate prose, Alvar reveals her characters’ pasts and desires, which range from saintly to shameful in this deeply religious culture…Alvar’s characters are engaging and memorable…as she places us gently, firmly, into their imperfect lives. Grad: A–." Entertainment Weekly

“In lush, sinuous sentences, Alvar probes the enduring stain of race, colonialism, and especially class, giving voice to all strata of Philippine society.” O, The Oprah Magazine

“Offers deft portraits of transnational wanderers, blessed and cursed with mobility…Clearly a writer with enchanting powers.” New York Times Book Review

“The initial ‘selling point’ of…In the Country, is its fresh subject matter…[and her] gorgeous writing style…Alvar is the kind of writer whose imagination seems inexhaustible, and who stirs up an answering desire in her readers for more and more stories.” NPR

“Alvar delves into the multifaceted immigrant experience, one compassionately drawn perspective at a time.” Huffington Post

“Alvar’s debut story collection is so well-drawn and plot-rich that you almost wish it were a novel.” New York magazine

“In this stunning debut collection, the yearnings of the characters resonate well beyond the page, and each story feels as rich, as deep, and as crafted as a novel.…The language is as elegant as it is durable, while the lines of class, race, gender, and history are both blurred and crystallized.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Few writers…can produce collections of evenly superb stories. Mia Alvar triumphs on her first try.” Library Journal (starred review)

Awards

  • Amazon Best Book of the Month
  • Vogue Pick
  • Los Angeles Times Best Book
  • Huffington Post Pick
  • New York Magazine Top 10 Books
  • Publishers Weekly Pick
  • New York Times   Bestseller
  • Publishers Weekly Best Book
  • Amazon Best Books of the Year
  • Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books
  • BuzzFeed Books Pick
  • NPR’s Great Reads
  • John Leonard Prize
  • Barnes & Noble Discover Award
  • PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction
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