Writing from the Margins into the Universal

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Sahota takes it further in “The Year of the Runaways”: “What decadence this belonging rubbish was, what time the rich must have if they could sit around and weave great worries out of such threadbare things.”

With an eye on two new novels by Indian writers, and perspective from writers such as Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Pankaj Mishra, Parul Sehgal of the New York Times Book Review writes about the state of the literature of immigration.


Kirstin Allio is currently a Howard Foundation Fellow at Brown University. Her story collection, Clothed, Female Figure comes out with Dzanc in 2016. Her novel, Garner (Coffee House), was a finalist for the LA Times Book Award for First Fiction. She has received the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” Award, a PEN/O. Henry Prize, and has published many short stories, poems, and essays. More from this author →