GISH JEN is the author of three previous novels and a book of stories. Her honors include the Lannan Literary Award for fiction and the Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives with her husband and two children in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“[A] triumph of a novel. . . . Jen reflects America, at its best,
its worst, its most vulnerable. World and Town is her richest,
warmest work yet.” —The Miami Herald
“What a pleasure to read this smart, warm novel from Gish Jen. . .
. As this humane novel shows . . . only active compassion will
build a better world and town.” —The Washington Post
“Remarkable. . . . World and Town practically sings.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“An imaginatively questioning and shrewdly written novel of our
times.” —The Boston Globe
“I love the voices in this book—each compelling, each contributing
to the layered story. . . . You will find yourself swept up and
completely absorbed by this polyphonic and immensely moving novel.”
—Allegra Goodman, author of The Cookbook Collector
“A book of immense riches. . . . Rich with ideas about the ways
people adapt or fail to, about how lives are built and what can
tear them apart, about what people believe and whether their
beliefs undermine them or enable them to prosper. . . . Gish Jen’s
novels do not come along often, so this is not one to miss.” —The
Washington Times
“One of Jen’s greatest strengths is her fluid point of view, which
she employs beautifully here. . . . Nothing is fixed for these
unsettled characters, who keep trying to build new lives in a
bewildering world, and whose victories, when they come, bring not
rapture but ‘a defining grace, bittersweet and hard won.’” —The New
York Times Book Review
“For nearly two decades, Gish Jen has been chronicling the
experience of immigrants in America with a sure hand and an amused,
affectionate eye. Her ability to inhabit varied minds and hearts
without drawing attention to her efforts evokes the passionate
omniscience of George Eliot.” —Whole Living
“Jen has a sharp eye and gives Hattie a quirky, comic sensibility.
. . . Her bighearted, rumpled novel gives [her characters] room to
change directions and find new ways to live together.” —The
Columbus Dispatch
“Profoundly moving. . . . World and Town is a novel that
unfolds with a great deal of grace.” —PopMatters.com
“Jen is masterful at mixing keen observation with wit and wisdom,
and she is in top form here . . . diving into the pain and promise
of coming to America.” —BookPage
“Jen beautifully captures the pain of feeling invisible in a place
where your every move is being watched, a place ‘where you can talk
and talk and still have nobody hear.’” —The New Yorker
“[Sophy] is a marvelous study in contradictions, with the voice,
pop cultural references and cheap yearnings of an American
teenager, but a spirit scarred by secondhand trauma. . . .
Powerful.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“It’s a big subject, America, but Gish Jen once again proves an
exemplary national pulse-taker. . . . Jen’s narrative sparkles.”
—The Toronto Star
“Jen’s sensitivity and charming humor should vault this to the top
of book groups’ must-reads.” —Library Journal
“Jen’s richly stippled novel slyly questions every assumption about
existence and meaning even as it celebrates generosity, friendship,
and love.” —Booklist
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