In the Country: Stories Audiobook

Quotes

• “Alvar’s…diamond prose sparkles so brightly and cuts so deeply. Each marvelous story shows us a facet of the Philippines at a distance…and how our ties to the past can be simultaneously tenuous and tenacious.”

  — Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author

• “Summer’s standout debut is Mia Alvar’s peripatetic story collection, In the Country, which captures a global village of voices—a blue-eyed fashion model in Manila; a nanny in gilded Bahrain—with a ventriloquist’s ease.”

  — Vogue

• “Through careful, delicate prose, Alvar reveals her characters’ pasts and desires, which range from saintly to shameful in this deeply religious culture…Alvar’s characters are engaging and memorable…as she places us gently, firmly, into their imperfect lives. Grad: A–."

  — Entertainment Weekly

• “In lush, sinuous sentences, Alvar probes the enduring stain of race, colonialism, and especially class, giving voice to all strata of Philippine society.”

  — O, The Oprah Magazine

• “Offers deft portraits of transnational wanderers, blessed and cursed with mobility…Clearly a writer with enchanting powers.”

  — New York Times Book Review

• “The initial ‘selling point’ of…In the Country, is its fresh subject matter…[and her] gorgeous writing style…Alvar is the kind of writer whose imagination seems inexhaustible, and who stirs up an answering desire in her readers for more and more stories.”

  — NPR

• “Alvar delves into the multifaceted immigrant experience, one compassionately drawn perspective at a time.”

  — Huffington Post

• “Alvar’s debut story collection is so well-drawn and plot-rich that you almost wish it were a novel.”

  — New York magazine

• “In this stunning debut collection, the yearnings of the characters resonate well beyond the page, and each story feels as rich, as deep, and as crafted as a novel.…The language is as elegant as it is durable, while the lines of class, race, gender, and history are both blurred and crystallized.”

  — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

• “Few writers…can produce collections of evenly superb stories. Mia Alvar triumphs on her first try.”

  — Library Journal (starred review)

• “Stunning…[Alvar’s] electric prose probes the tension between social classes…A triumphant, singular collection deserving of every accolade it will likely receive.”

  — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

• “In the Country is filled with graceful, carefully crafted stories—each one a world unto itself.”

  — Nathan Englander, author of For the Relief of Unbearable Urges