"Franz Kafka's diaries and letters suggest that his fascination with America grew out of a desire to break away from his native Prague, even if only in his imagination. Kafka died before he could finish what he liked to call his ''American novel," but he clearly entitled it Der Verschollene ("The Missing Person") in a letter to his fiancee, Felice Bauer, in 1912. Kafka began writing the novel that fall and wrote the last completed chapter in 1914,...

In the mid 1930's two well-educated sisters from Shanghai go to Los Angeles to become brides of the "Gold Mountain men" when their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. When they get there they are detained, interrogated, and humiliated for months. When one of the sisters becomes pregnant they vow that no one will ever know.

"September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries...and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she's made. Will what she learns...

Inara Erickson's discovery of an elaborately stitched piece of fabric in her deceased aunt's island estate leads her to the century-old story of Mei Lien, and a difficult truth about her about her family.

"Set in China and America, in the generations after the Cultural Revolution, The Sorrows of Others is a dazzling collection about people confronted with being outsiders--as immigrants, as revolutionaries, and even, often, within their own families. In New York City, an art student finds an unexpected subject when she moves in with a grandmother from Xi'an, and boundaries are put into question. When a newlywed couple moves to Arizona, adapting to unfamiliar...

"A young Swedish boy finds himself in penniless and alone in California. He travels East in search of his brother, moving on foot against the great push to the West. Driven back over and over again on his journey through vast expanses, H©Ækan meets naturalists, criminals, religious fanatics, Indians, and lawmen, and his exploits turn him into a legend. Diaz defies the conventions of historical fiction and genre (travel narratives, the bildungsroman,...

"In a powerful debut novel about motherhood, immigration, and identity, a pregnant Chinese woman makes her way to California and stakes a claim to the American dream. Holed up with other moms-to-be in a secret maternity home in Los Angeles, Scarlett Chen is far from her native China, where she worked in a factory job and fell in love with the owner, Boss Yeung. Now she's carrying his baby. Already married with three daughters, he's overjoyed because...

"Dia Mittal is an airline call center agent in Mumbai searching for a better life. As her search takes her to the U.S., and eventually to Greater Los Angeles, Dia's checkered relationship with the American Dream dialogues with the experiences and perspectives of a global South Asian community across the class spectrum--call center agents, travel agents, immigrant maids, fashion designers, blue- and white-collar workers in the hospitality industry,...

"When her husband suddenly disappears, a young woman must uncover where he went-and who she might be without him-in this striking debut of immigration, identity, and marriage"--

1737. Anna and Bairn met during their crossing to start a new life in the raw Pennsylvania frontier. As Anna and her fellow church members seek out a new beginning, Bairn has yet to commit to the strict expectations of the Amish community. Will their shipboard romance survive unexpected turns-- and a newcomer to the church who is everything Bairn is not?