Transnational Series Presents: Abbigail N. Rosewood in conversation with Mira T. Lee

This reading is part of Brookline Booksmith’s Transnational Literature Series which focuses on migration, exile and displacement and works in translation.

This luminous debut novel follows a young woman from her childhood in Vietnam to her life as an immigrant in the United States – and her necessary return to her homeland.

As a child, isolated from the world in a secretive military encampment with her distant mother, she turns for affection to a sympathetic soldier and to the only other girl in the camp, forming two friendships that will shape the rest of her life.

As a young adult in New York, cut off from her native country and haunted by the scars of her youth, she is still in search of a home. She falls in love with a married woman who is the image of her childhood friend, and follows strangers because they remind her of her soldier. When tragedy arises, she must return to Vietnam to confront the memories of her youth – and recover her identity.

Abbigail N. Rosewood was born in Vietnam, where she lived until the age of twelve. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. An excerpt from her first novel won first place in the Writers Workshop of Asheville Literary Fiction Contest. She lives in New York.

Mira T. Lee’s debut novel, Everything Here is Beautiful, was selected as a Top 10 Debut and Indie Next Pick by the American Booksellers Association, and named a Best Fiction title of 2018 by Amazon, O Magazine, Real Simple, and the Goodreads Readers Choice Awards. It was also named a top Winter Pick by more than 30 news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Poets & Writers, New York magazine, and Buzzfeed, among others. Mira’s short fiction has appeared in journals such as the Southern Review, the Missouri Review,and Harvard Review, and has twice received special mention for the Pushcart Prize. She has also been the recipient of an Artist’s Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.