Immigrant Writers and Reviews of Their Works

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May 25, 2019

There are a number of successful immigrant writers published by various publishers in the United States. These works are widely known among readers because of their monetary and cultural values.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt  published Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake in hardcover format in 2003. The novel sold 30,000 copies in the UK and in the US sold over 1,000,000 and also spent 48 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list (Unaccustomed Earth, 2016).

Scribner published Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn in paperback in 2010. Because to be an immigrant writer in a true sense one should be an immigrant, Toibin is not an immigrant writer.

Ember, an independent publisher, published the reprint edition of Sonia Nazario’s Enrique’s Journey in 2014. Like Toibin, Nazario is not an immigrant writer. She was born in Madison, Wisconsin in the US.

Another great immigrant writer is Jean Kwok. Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin Group published Girl in Translation in paperback in 2011. This immigrant novel is the author’s autobiographical story. Eighteen countries have published the book and is available in into sixteen languages.

In 2015, HarperCollins published The Story Hour written by Thrity Umriger. Thrity is an American-Indian author. Similarly, Alfred Knopf published Cristina Henriquez’s The Book of Unknown Americans in 2015. Henriquez is an immigrant, but not a first generation immigrant.

Another talent in immigrant writing is Junot Diaz. Junot’s The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It also won 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction including other awards and accolades.

More Immigrant Writers and Publishers

Riverhead Books published the book. Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic. It tells the stories of a group of Japanese bride immigrants. Anchor published the book in 2012. Julie received the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Buddha in the Attic was also termed as a The New York Times Notable Book.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote Americanah. Anchor published the hardcover version of it in 2014. The book categorized as one of ‘The New York Time’s Ten Best Books of the Year’. This was also the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer, divides her time between Nigeria and the United States.

Akhil Sharma’s Family Life was published in 2015 in the US. Faber & Faber published it in the UK in 2014. Sharma’s is an autobiographical novel. Mr. Sharma is the first generation immigrant.

Maria E. Andreu is not only an immigrant writer but also an immigrant rights activist. The Philadelphia-based small publisher, Running Press Kid, published her The Secret Side of Empty in 2015. Maria first came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant.

Immigrant writers Akhil Sharma, John Kwok, and Maria Andreu

The focus of this article is the first generation immigrant writers in highlighting their fresh voices. So, we have chosen the novels of Akhil Sharma, John Kwok, and Maria E. Andreu for proper review.

These are some successful immigrant authors whose books are distinct from those of the mainstream authors. Immigrant writers say that publishers have biased views towards their work.

Sharing his experience of being an immigrant writer, Amit Majmudar says, ‘The more I studied the book, as a marketable object, the more I thought about how, for me, being a writer is related to being a son of immigrants and how complicated the situation is.’

Ilan Stavans shared the similar experience. He says that American is often from ‘an insider’s perspective,’ not from outsiders’, such as immigrants.’ Now let us review the three distinct novels of immigrants who turned publisher.