Beautiful Country

An incandescent and heartrending memoir from an astonishing new talent, Beautiful Country puts readers in the shoes of an undocumented child living in extreme poverty in the richest country in the world.

In Chinese the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to "beautiful country." Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in 1994, she finds the roads paved not with gold, but instead crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian's parents were professors; in America, her family is considered illegal.

In New York City, Qian's parents work in sweatshops and sushi factories. Instead of laughing at her jokes or watching her dance, they fight constantly. Qian goes to school hungry. She masters English through library books, her only source of comfort. Her mother, her sole confidant, is too sick to get out of bed, but going to the doctor isn't an option. And most distressing of all to the outgoing and precocious Qian: the number one rule in America is that she must go unnoticed, or risk losing everything.

Searing and unforgettable, Beautiful Country is memoir at its best. Channeling her childhood perspective, Wang illuminates an essential American story about a family fracturing under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the shadows, who never stops seeking the light.