Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions
Tell Me How It Ends is an essay built around the questionnaire used for children in U.S. immigration court, following the stories of minors who crossed the border. Drawing on the author’s work as an interpreter, it examines the ethics of narration and the cruelty of systems.
Work Information
Before a system that asks children for an ending, the story refuses to end.
In a brief span, the book layers questions, translation, courtrooms, and fragments of journeys, returning abstract debate about immigration to concrete voices. It asks who is admitted into the story of America and who is excluded.
Review Summaries
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The essay is valued for its urgent politics and self-questioning narration. It brings readers close to the inhumanity of the system while remaining alert to the danger of speaking for children.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Coffee House Pr
- Published
- 2017-04-04
- Pages
- 119 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 12.45 x 1.02 x 19.3 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781566894951
- ISBN-10
- 1566894956
- Price
- 3185 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Politics & Social Sciences/Politics & Government/Public Affairs & Policy/Social Services & Welfare
"Humane yet often horrifying, Tell Me How It Ends offers a compelling, intimate look at a continuing crisis—and its ongoing cost in an age of increasing urgency." —Jeremy Garber, Powell's Books "Valeria Luiselli's extended essay on her volunteer work translating for child immigrants confronts with compassion and honesty the problem of the North American refugee crisis. It's a rare thing: a book everyone should read." —Stephen Sparks, Point Reyes Books " Tell Me How It Ends evokes empathy as it educates. It is a vital contribution to the body of post-Trump work being published in early 2017."—Katharine Solheim, Unabridged Bookstore "While this essay is brilliant for exactly what it depicts, it helps open larger questions, which we're ever more on the precipice of now, of where all of this will go, how all of this might end. Is this a story, or is this beyond a story? Valeria Luiselli is one of those brave and eloquent enough to help us see."—Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company "Appealing to the language of the United States' fraught immigration policy, Luiselli exposes the cracks in this foundation. Herself an immigrant, she highlights the human cost of its brokenness, as well as the hope that it (rather than walls) might be rebuilt."—Brad Johnson, Diesel Bookstore "The bureaucratic labyrinth of immigration, the dangers of searching for a better life, all of this and more is contained in this brief and profound work. Tell Me How It Ends is not just relevant, it's essential."—Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore
Valeria Luiselli was born Mexico City and 1983 and grew up in South Africa. A award-winning novelist ( The Story of My Teeth and Faces in the Crowd ) and essayist ( Sidewalks ), her work has been translated into many languages and has appeared in publications including the New York Times , the New Yorker , Granta , and McSweeney's .
Reviews
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Sehr bewegend
Ich musste dieses Buch ursprünglich für mein Studium lesen, allerdings hat es mich nach wenigen Seiten so gepackt, dass ich es nicht mehr weglegen konnte. Die Autorin hat einen wundervollen Schreibstil und schafft es, gekonnt ihre eigenen Erfahrungen mit generellen Infos über ein sehr aktuelles Thema zu verknüpfen und so ein bewegendes Buch zu schaffen, das einen langfristig zum Nachdenken bringt.
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Devastating and Crucial
I picked up this book immediately after Broad City’s Abbi Jacobsen shared it online, and although it’s rare I move something to the front of my reading queue, I felt as if the urgency of the topic demanded I make an exception. I read this on a plane from New York to San Francisco, and I confess there’s something especially uncomfortable about reading a book about the treatment of refugees coming to the United States from countries south of our border while in the air traveling freely across the country. It’s even more uncomfortable when you think about it in terms of flying between two equally comfortable homes: one where your family resides happily and safely, and another where you put down new roots purely because you had the opportunity to. But it’s a productive discomfort—the kind of thing I need to confront more often whenever I hear the word “privilege” and think about it only in abstract terms, and not about the ways my everyday existence is colored by a freedom that isn’t shared by all. Here Valeria Luiselli offers a poignant reflection on her experiences as a translator for children who crossed the border and faced deportation, and in just one-hundred pages she debunks myths about immigration, asserts new ways to consider the issue, humanizes the too-often anonymous individuals affected by inhumane policies, and most powerfully, offers a deeply emotional account of an on-going contemporary tragedy. I read this in the first two and a half hours of the flight, and I felt it in my stomach the entire time. And when I hit the last paragraph in her brief but mesmerizing Coda chapter, I could not stop myself from sobbing. This is a stunning essay from a brilliant writer, who composes with astonishing clarity. Her prose is gorgeous, and even if you feel sufficiently swung on the issue of immigration, I can’t imagine a person who would not be moved to their core by what is offered here. This is an important book.
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Très intéressant !
Excellent état . Envoi rapide et soigné. Merci S.Z
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Lloré
Es un libro fácil de leer, es el primero que leo en inglés y no me equivoqué. La temática es algo fuerte, pero la narrativa de la autora te hace ir de la mano de la historia fácilmente
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5-star review
I am satisfied with this book's content