The Four Words for Home: A memoir of two families

Winner of the Independent Publishers Bronze Medal in Multicultural Nonfiction. From Afghanistan and Taiwan, the stories of two immigrant families intersect in post-9/11 America. Angie Chuang takes on an assignment to "find the human face of the country we're about to bomb" weeks after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Her five-year journey into the lives of the Shirzai family transports her far beyond journalism. As she is drawn ever deeper into the Shirzais's lives, Chuang confronts unknown territory closer to home. Her own immigrant family from Taiwan is falling apart. Mental illness, divorce, and deeply rooted cultural taboos have shattered her family's American Dream. Ultimately, she finds the two families are more similar than she had imagined. It is in journeying far away from her own home that she is drawn back to her roots-and to confront the hard truth and broken places that lie at the heart of so many stories of migration.

Author: Angie Chuang
Publisher: Aquarius Press LLC
Published: 03/25/2014
Pages: 268
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.97lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780989735742
Award: Independent Publisher Book Awards - Bronze Medal Winner

About the Author
Chuang, Angie: - Author of the award-winning memoir, The Four Words for Home: The book tells the stories of two immigrant families and Chuang's reporting in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11. Angie's literary writing has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, The Asian American Literary Review, multiple editions of The Best Women's Travel Writing, and elsewhere. She has spoken about and read from her work at venues ranging from bookstores and book festivals to university invited-author series.