With anger but not despair, with reconciliation but not unrealistic hope, and with genuine humour that is not used to diminish anyone, Nguyen has breathed life into many unforgettable characters, and given us a timely book focusing, in the words of Willa Cather, on "the slow working out of fate in people of allied sentiment and allied blood" . the Guardian
Nguyen's eight heart-wrenching and hopeful stories ought to be required reading for every politician in this era of wall-building and xenophobia. . The Guardian, Fiction to Look Out for in 2017
[A] superb collection . . . exquisite stories . . . Nguyen crafts dazzlingly lucid prose. . the Observer
Poignant . . . Nguyen writes most movingly of the debt of safety and freedom . . . Nguyen's stories are to be admired for their ability to encompass not only the trauma of forced migration but also the grand themes of identity, the complications of love and sexuality, and the general awkwardness of being. For all their serious qualities, they are also humorous and smart . . . The form of the short story seems to come to Nguyen effortlessly. . Financial Times
