Beautiful Country

A Memoir

By: Qian Julie Wang

Narrated by: Qian Julie Wang

Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

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

"Extraordinary.... Consider this remarkable memoir a new classic." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to “beautiful country”. Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian’s parents were professors; in America, her family is “illegal”, and it will require all the determination and small joys they can muster to survive.

In Chinatown, Qian’s parents labor in sweatshops. Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the stress of their new life on one another. Shunned by her classmates and teachers for her limited English, Qian takes refuge in the library and masters the language through books, coming to think of The Berenstain Bears as her first American friends. And where there is delight to be found, Qian relishes it: her first bite of gloriously greasy pizza, weekly “shopping days”, when Qian finds small treasures in the trash lining Brooklyn’s streets, and a magical Christmas visit to Rockefeller Center - confirmation that the New York City she saw in movies does exist after all.

But then Qian’s headstrong Ma Ma collapses, revealing an illness that she has kept secret for months for fear of the cost and scrutiny of a doctor’s visit. As Ba Ba retreats further inward, Qian has little to hold onto beyond his constant refrain: Whatever happens, say that you were born here, that you’ve always lived here.

Inhabiting her childhood perspective with exquisite lyric clarity and unforgettable charm and strength, Qian Julie Wang has penned 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.

©2021 Qian Julie Wang (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, NPR, Publishers Weekly, The Guardian, Good Housekeeping, She Reads, and more • One of President Obama's Favorite Books of the Year

“Incredibly important, exquisitely written, harrowing. . . Beautiful Country tells [Wang’s] story, well, quite beautifully. It is not only Wang’s mastery of the language that makes the story so compelling, but also the passionate yearning for empathy and understanding. Beautiful Country is timely, yes, but more importantly it is a near-masterpiece that will make Qian Julie Wang a literary star.”—Shondaland

“A coming-of-age memoir about an undocumented Chinese girl growing up in New York's Chinatown, this lyrical book is full of small moments of joy, heartbreaking pain and the struggles of a family trying to survive in the shadows of society. It's a uniquely American story, and an essential one.”—Good Housekeeping

“A heartbreaking and intimate memoir... the storytelling from a young Qian’s perspective is riveting.”—Politico

America NOT SO beautiful

I thought we had come so far as Americans but reading this makes me wonder what really goes on that we close our eyes to as people enter this country looking for a better life!!

A long childhood

This book made me realize that I don’t love memoirs based almost solely on one’s early childhood. I love children but their blow by blow childhood memories are not the stuff of books I enjoy. Some of the cultural aspects of this childhood were interesting but overall the book is sad.

Makes Me Sad

Sorry to think your experience here was so painful. My parents were immigrants from Germany in the early 1900s. There’s was a wonderful experience. The difference was they had someone here who cared about them and help them get started. That’s what every newcomer needs I’m happy to say my experience here as a first generation American has been profound and beautiful.

Great story!

What a very interesting book but it’s also very sad most of the time. You can’t believe that a little 6 year old girl hast to go through so much !!! Certain parts are absolutely going to break your heart so be prepared!!!

Beautiful Country, Beautiful Memoir!

What amazes me most about this book is the detail she uses in her descriptions of the life they forged in their new country, but it's detail from a little girl perspective. It makes me wonder if she was writing a journal or diary at the time, because as an adult many people lose that childhood perspective, but she wrote in such viscerally childlike language at times that it really puts you in her shoes in a way few adult books can. Even though the subject matter is often difficult to hear, her perspective is still in a way refreshing, interesting. It's a beautifully written account of the difficulties of the immigrant experience in the US, and in an age of so much anti-immigrant sentiment, it's an important reminder of just how hard it is to come to a new country with basically nothing and begin a new life. Also for me personally, I'm a white American married to a Chinese woman and living in China, and there was so much I could relate to from a cultural perspective as well. All around, a highly recommended book with great narration by the author.

Incredible Story

I love how the gifted author could describe her experiences through a child’s eyes. Profoundly meaningful story that addresses so many issues undocumented people face.

People need to stop calling honesty as “being negative”

The author is telling her story when she was around 7 years old, everything you read in this book is from her honest perspective as a child. For people who complain about this book being negative or judging, you are the one who is judging without being empathetic and see the world as a young fearful girl and her broken family. This is a honest story not a self help book.

The kind of memoir that stays with you forever

there is no way to give this memoir the review it deserves but I must try.
This is an immigrant story, a coming of age story and an American tragedy. The so called “Beautiful Country” that does not lives up to its Chinese name. You don’t need to be an immigrant to be destroyed by this memoir. It will devastate you and somehow fill you with hope.
The writing is superb, the metaphors she uses made me stop reading so I could savor them and try to commit them to memory.
She is the narrator, which in my opinion, takes the audiobook to another level because it sounds so genuine and raw you cannot help but to feel what she is feeling.
I really hope she writes a continuation of this book, after all, there is so much more of her story I would love to know.
I’m so grateful she shared her life with the world. I will never forget it.

Incredible

Fantastic story about trauma, immigration, and hope. I appreciate that it was read by the author.

Engrossing and thought provoking

As someone whose journey to residing in the US was much different, this book resonates deeply. It is very well written and the narration done beautifully. (Yes, the parts where the author emulates the accent of other characters are not always the smoothest but this is an extremely minor quibble).

In a time where the vapid calls for “unity” in America have disappeared and the splits in the country are beginning to show more clearly, this book should at least prompt people to take stock of the enduring reality of the “poor, tired, huddled masses” that exist to this day. One experience should not be generalized but the feeling of wanting to be accepted and respected is universal.