Published in 2019
336 pages
Nikesh Shukla is an award-winning, best-selling writer of books and television. He edited The Good Immigrant which is a collection of 21 essays by female and male writers. TIME Magazine recently named Shukla one of the twelve leaders shaping the next generation of artists. He was also included in Foreign Policy magazine’s 100 Global Thinkers and The Bookseller’s 100 most influential people in publishing in 2016 and 2017.
Shukla’s mission is simple in a world of racial complexity: to give a literary platform to brown and black voices and stories beyond the scope of race or immigration. He has been credited with changing the hue of British publishing over the last several years through his publications, articles, speeches and establishing The Good Journal and The Good Literary Agency. “Not all writers of color want to write about race. They want to write sci-fi or creative nonfiction about beekeeping.”
Chimene Suleyman is a writer from London who is now based in New York. As well as contributing to The Good Immigrant as co-editor, she has written on race-politics for The Independent, International Business Times, The Debrief, The Pool, and Media Diversified. TV and radio appearances include BBC Newsnight, BBC, and LBC. Her poetry collection, Outside Looking On, was included in the Guardian’s Best Books of 2014 list.
What is this book about?
An urgent collection of essays by first and second-generation immigrants, exploring what it’s like to be othered in an increasingly divided America.
From Trump’s proposed border wall and travel ban to the marching of White Supremacists in Charlottesville, America is consumed by tensions over immigration and the question of which bodies are welcome. In this much-anticipated follow-up to the bestselling UK edition, hailed by Zadie Smith as “lively and vital,” editors Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman hand the microphone to an incredible range of writers whose humanity and right to be here is under attack.
Chigozie Obioma unpacks an Igbo proverb that helped him navigate his journey to America from Nigeria. Jenny Zhang analyzes cultural appropriation in 90s fashion, recalling her own pain and confusion as a teenager trying to fit in. Fatimah Asghar describes the flood of memory and emotion triggered by an encounter with an Uber driver from Kashmir. Alexander Chee writes of a visit to Korea that changed his relationship to his heritage.
These writers, and the many others in this singular collection, share powerful personal stories of living between cultures and languages while struggling to figure out who they are and where they belong. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, troubling and uplifting, the essays in The Good Immigrant come together to create a provocative, conversation-sparking, multivocal portrait of America now.
List of essays/authors included (and rating system, lol) in this review by Kristen from goodreads:
A lot of the chapters were 5/5 powerful, stirring, insightful, beautifully written and thought-provoking reads. I’ve even found a few authors that I know I definitely want to read more from now. However, not all of the entries were ones that I enjoyed. A few read more like a textbook history lesson, some were hate-filled and racist and there was one that I found overwritten. Still, if you are interested in seeing life from the perspective of others, I highly recommend this book to you.
Overall rating is 3.84 out of 5 (rounded up to 4 stars) based off of my individual enjoyment of each chapter, which is as follows:
How to Write Iranian-America or The Last Essay by Porochista Khakpour – 5/5*
Swimmer by Nicole Dennis-Benn – 5/5*
Sidra (in 12 Movements) by Rahawa Haile – 5/5
On the Blackness of the Panther by Teju Cole – 3/5
How Not to Be by Priya Minhas – 4/5
After Migration: The Once and Future Kings by Wale Oyejide – 3/5
On Loneliness by Fatimah Asghar – 5/5
Chooey-Booey and Brown by Tejal Rao – 4/5
Luck of the Irish by Maeve Higgins – 5/5
Her Name was India by Krutika Mallikarjuna – 4/5
Shithole Nation by Jim St Germain – 5/5*
Blond Girls in Cheongsams by Jenny Zhang – 5/5*
The Naked Man by Chigozie Obioma – 4/5
Your Father’s Country by Alexander Chee – 4/5
The Long Answer by Yann Mounir Demange – 4/5
An American, Told by Jean Hannah Edelstein – 5/5
On Being Kim Kardashian by Chimeme Suleyman – 4/5
Tour Diary by Basim Usmani – 1/5
Dispatches from the Languages by Daniel Jose Older – 4/5
Juana Azurduy Versus Christopher Columbus by Adrian & Sebastian Vikar Rojas –2/5
No Es Suficiente by Dani Fernandez – 5/5
Skittles by Fatima Farheen Mirza – 5/5*
Return to Macondo by Susanne Ramirez de Arellano – 3/5
244 Million by Mona Chalabi – 3/5
How to Center Your Own Story by Jade Chang – 4/5
*denotes favorites
