Beautiful Country – the breathtaking memoir by Qian Julie Wang – is a devastatingly real portrayal of life as an undocumented child living in America, an astonishing debut from a fresh new voice and talent. Pick up a copy of the memoir here.
Beautiful Country is one of the break-out debuts of 2021, written by an incredibly fresh talent and new voice – Qian Julie Wang. The memoir offers a very real portrayal of life as an undocumented child living in poverty in America. When seven-year old Qian arrives in New York in 1994 from China, the reality of life in ‘Mei Guo’ is not the fairytale dream they had believed it to be. Back in China, her parents were professors, but now in America they live illegally, in constant fear of being discovered by the authorities. In order to scrape a living together, her parents are forced to work in sweatshops – the effect continually felt on their marriage and Qian herself is left as an outsider at school with her limited English. Despite the odds stacked against her, she largely teaches herself English and finds a love in books and literature. It would have been highly likely for Qian to detest the country which makes her life so hard, yet she delights in the small joys around her, falling for the American Dream as ardently as her father before her.
In telling her story, Wang tells the whole picture – unvarnished and wholly real – picking apart her own flaws, her parents often unkind treatment of their child and each other. She offers a mature adult perspective, whilst still living within her childhood perspective and innocence in some respects. It’s an important read to help empathise, in many ways, with the undocumented experience – the burden of living under the shadow of being discovered and the potential impact on daily life. One of the most eye-opening parts of the memoir is shown in Ma Ma’s fear of going to the hospital, where the authorities are, even whilst enduring the effects of cancer. Wang’s voice is unique, thoughtful and unvarnished, positioning her as a fresh and important voice, one worth heeding.
