Qian Julie Wang’s memoir Beautiful Country is the latest pick for Jenna Bush Hager’s Today show book club.
Wang’s book, her first, tells the story of her childhood in New York’s Chinatown, where she grew up as an impoverished undocumented immigrant, the daughter of two sweatshop workers who came to the United States from China. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the memoir “a potent testament to the love, curiosity, grit, and hope of a courageous and resourceful immigrant child.”
“When it comes to widely debated issues such as immigration, it is one thing to listen to pundits speak their opinions, but it is another to read the real details of a little girl’s experience growing up as an undocumented immigrant in the U.S.,” Hager said. “It is one of those remarkable books that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading it.”
Wang told Today that her book is a “celebration of family and childhood.”
“I had always dreamed of writing this book, because I grew up living and breathing books,” Wang said. “It was how I learned English, and it was how I found a home in America where I felt incredibly lonely.”
Beautiful Country was published Tuesday by Doubleday.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
