The Hungry Season: A Journey of War, Love, and Survival
Description :
A New York Times Book Review Editors ChoiceA Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the YearIn the tradition of Katherine Boo and Tracy Kidder The Hungry Season is a lyrical narrative with real suspense New York Times a nonfiction drama that reads like the best of fiction Mark Arax tracing one womans journey from the mistcovered mountains of Laos to the sunbaked flatlands of Fresno California as she struggles to overcome the wounds inflicted by war and family alikeAs combat rages across the highlands of Vietnam and Laos a child is born Ia Moua enters the world at the bottom of the social order both because she is part of the Hmong minority and because she is a daughter not a son When at thirteen she is promised in marriage to a man three times her age it appears that Ias future has been decided for her But after brutal communist rule upends her life this intrepid girl resolves to chart her own defiant
pathWith ceaseless ambition and an indestructible spirit Ia builds a new existence for herself and before long for her children first in the refugee camps of Thailand and then in the industrial heartland of Californias San Joaquin Valley At the root of her success is a simple act growing Hmong rice just as her ancestors did and selling it to those who hunger for the Laos of their memories While the booming business brings her newfound power it also forces her to face her own past In order to endure the present Ia must confront all that she left behind and somehow find a place in her heart for those who chose to leave herMeticulously reported over seven years and written with the intimacy of a novel The Hungry Season is the story of one radiant womans quest for survivaland for the nourishment that matters most