Immigrant Short Stories

“Memorable, unflinching, and deeply human.” — Finalist, Grace Notes Publishing Fiction Contest What does it cost to find a home? In this award-winning collection of fourteen stories, the borders are more than just lines on a map—they are the boundaries of the human soul. From the dusty streets of Sinaloa to the bustling day-labor corners of the U.S., these stories pull back the curtain on a world defined by the search for dignity, purpose, and survival. Meet the unforgettable characters caught in the crossfire: Jesus, a rookie day laborer who must decide if his "American Dream" is ...

Ken Liu, author of the Nebula and Hugo Award–winning The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and The Hidden Girl and Other Stories—his second short story collection and the basis of the groundbreaking anime Pantheon—returns with a bold new anthology. Thought-provoking, heartbreaking, and...

It’s a New Jersey summer in 1967, and thirteen-year-old Ravi Ramanathan has the makings of a tennis prodigy. His surgeon father encourages his ambition, while his mother dreams of their only child following his father’s path. Surrounded by his parents’ love, Ravi chafes a bit at their daily routines and little traditions. Then one unexpected day, everything changes. Realizing how much he took for granted, Ravi must grow up overnight and find a new role in the life of his family.

From the award-winning author of Chemistry comes a sharp and poignant short story that follows a young medical student working in clinical research and grappling with the realities of a future in her chosen field.

Featured in the Netflix series Love, Death & Robots Bestselling author Ken Liu selects his multiple award-winning stories for a groundbreaking collection—including a brand-new piece exclusive to this volume. With his debut novel, The Grace of Kings, taking the literary world by storm, Ken Liu...

This revelatory story collection honors characters struggling to find their bearings far from home, even as they do the necessary "grunt work of the world." A failed boxer painting nails at the local salon. A woman plucking feathers at a chicken processing plant. A housewife learning English...

“In these kaleidoscopic stories of Jamaica and its diaspora we hear many voices at once. All of them convince and sing. All of them shine.”—Zadie Smith An O: The Oprah Magazine “Top 15 Best of the Year” A Well-Read Black Girl’sPick Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal...

In these deeply felt, slyly humorous stories, Bezmozgis pleads no special causes but presents immigrant characters with all their contradictions and complexities, their earnest and divided hearts.

All is well with longshoreman Uncle Eddie, kindhearted Aunt Beatrice and live-in niece Catherine until the secret guests from Italy arrive and Uncle Eddie turns from generous and welcoming to jealous, difficult and self-serving resulting in disastrous encounters and dark consequences, as a Greek modern tragedy. The story is set in working-class 1950s Brooklyn, in the Red Hook neighborhood with “a view from the bridge.” The book is the prose version of Arthur Miller’s 1955 play and it is perfect for a pleasant and intensive reading. It comes with an introduction, with notes and ...

From EDGAR-AWARD WINNING author Erika Krouse, a VISCERAL, DAZZLING collection of stories set across the globe about characters desperate for salvation “Comparative audiobook newbies Baker and Ewer already know how to aurally enhance Krouse’s marvelously provocative fiction debut...

"If I Survive You is a collection of connected short stories that reads like a novel, that reads like real life, that reads like fiction written at the highest level. There are no limits to where Jonathan Escoffery will go." —Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House "Torian Brackett's skillful...

The New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of Secret Daughter returns with an unforgettable story of family, responsibility, love, honor, tradition, and identity, in which two childhood friends—a young doctor and a newly married bride—must balance the expectations of their...

Following the success of Paris Noir, the Akashic Noir Series has expanded to include the famously diverse and sometimes controversial suburbs of this legendary city.

A perilous voyage by sea, the difficulties of life in a new country, new friends, and one terrible event, challenge Mette Jensen as she leaves her home in Haderslev, Schleswig determined to start a new life beyond the reach of Prussian Soldiers. With Denmark still reeling from the effects of war over the ownership of Schleswig, two Danish sisters make the difficult decision to leave their homeland. The men of Schleswig, on the border between Denmark and Germany, have already left in droves to avoid being drafted into the Prussian army, and a recruiter from New Zealand has been traveling ...

Every morning, on every continent, millions of people make the same unpaid journey: the one to work. In Tokyo, a salaryman rides a silent train and finds a paper crane with no name attached. In Lagos, a young woman sells data cards through car windows in gridlock, still half-believing a stranger's promise that her story isn't over. In Mumbai, a dabbawala carries a city's love in stacked steel tins, precise enough that Harvard once studied it. In Cairo, a civil servant watches a call to prayer stop the traffic noise for ninety seconds — and decides, in that quiet, to do the one right thing...

In the sun-bleached idyll of his Greek island home, seventeen-year-old Petros Castellanos’s future seems mapped out: he’ll inherit his father’s modest taxi fleet and continue his family tradition. However, his English mother sees a different path for her son, one that leads far from the watchful eyes of their small community. So Petros goes to London to stay with his mother’s cousin. The capital is an overwhelming city whose dazzling possibilities both terrify and enthral him.

On Ash Wednesday in 1908, Swiss German immigrant Fritz Hirter arrives at his children’s school, where he is the lone custodian. But soon after lessons start, a fast-moving fire breaks out—its cause is unknown, but its effects are horrifying. Although Fritz is soon cleared of any responsibility for the catastrophe, the community continues to suspect him, supremely testing Fritz and his family.

With winter closing in, a desperate Russian fugitive turns to her ex-lover for help, only to find herself involved in a deeper nightmare. Her cover is blown, a corrupt Task Force Chief is hunting her for profit, and for the first time, there's no one left to lean on. To survive, she'll have to make a decision that will change her life forever—for better, or for worse.

An evocative collection about the gap between the people we aspire to be and our flawed realities from “a radiant new voice” (Megha Majumdar). Both expansive and intimate, Bad Neighbors follows protagonists who strive to be the parents, lovers, siblings, friends, and children they’d like...

What happens when a single son is shaped by two opposite masters? Eduardo Kwiatkowski presents an intimate account of identity and heritage through the portraits of the two men who defined his life . In the first part, Conspiranoia: The Man Who Was Right About Everything, we meet Emilio, the author's biological father . Born in Argentina to Ukrainian immigrants, Emilio grew up in a neighborhood where Spanish was a foreign language . Orphaned at the age of twelve, he developed a unique "engineering of survival": he was capable of chaining a car to a tree just to avoid turning off the engine,...