'Beautiful Country' looks back on a young Chi...

In 1988, a group of gay men gathered in Kingston, Jamaica to put on a play. At the time, homophobia in the country was rampant and sex between men was outlawed. Marlon James’ new novel The Disappearers is about a hateful mob attack at one of the group’s rehearsals. In an intervie ...  Show more

On today’s show, we mark the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11 with two books that historicize the attacks. First, All the Presidents’ Wars focuses on anti-terror campaigns waged around the world over the past quarter century. Author Peter Bergen spoke with Morning Edition’s Steve Ins ...  Show more

Qian Julie Wang is just seven years old when her family arrives in America in 1994, and her whole world changes. Impoverished, isolated, and considered “illegal”, the Wangs must keep their immigration status — among other family truths — concealed.

At age 11, Julissa Arce came to the United States from Mexico on a visa that expired three years later. For more than a decade, she lived as an undocumented immigrant, fearful of revealing her secret to anyone. “Every phone call or email I got from human resources would make m ...

Yeonmi Park is an activist and author who fled to the United States after being a victim of sex trafficking. Park recounts her oppressive childhood in North Korea, starved and without electricity. She remembers how the lights of neighboring countries gave her hope for a better li ...  Show more

Eva Hnizdo reflects on the impulses which drive people to emigrate - or not, drawing on her Czech Jewish family's experience of the Holocaust and her own as a political asylum seeker. "Whenever members of my family thought about emigrating but didn't actually leave, they made a m ...  Show more