A Map Is Only One Story, Mensah Demary
A Map Is Only One Story, Mensah Demary
List: $15.99 | Sale: $11.20
Club: $7.99

A Map Is Only One Story
Twenty Writers on Immigration, Family, and the Meaning of Home

Author: Mensah Demary, Nicole Chung

Narrator: Cindy Kay

Unabridged: 5 hr 39 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Kalorama

Published: 07/07/2020


Synopsis

From rediscovering an ancestral village in China to experiencing the realities of American life as a Nigerian, the search for belonging crosses borders and generations. Selected from the archives of Catapult magazine, the essays in A Map Is Only One Story highlight the human side of immigration policies and polarized rhetoric, as twenty writers share provocative personal stories of existing between languages and cultures.

Victoria Blanco relates how those with family in both El Paso and Ciudad Juárez experience life on the border. Nina Li Coomes recalls the heroines of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki and what they taught her about her bicultural identity. Nur Nasreen Ibrahim details her grandfather's crossing of the India-Pakistan border sixty years after Partition. Krystal A. Sital writes of how undocumented status in the United States can impact love and relationships. Porochista Khakpour describes the challenges in writing (and rewriting) Iranian America. Through the power of personal narratives, as told by both emerging and established writers, A Map Is Only One Story offers a new definition of home in the twenty-first century.

About Mensah Demary

Mensah Demary is a founding editor of Catapult magazine and editor at large of Catapult books.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Allison on April 22, 2020

This essay collection was outstanding, and truly highlights why Catapult is the best of the best. These 20 essays are from a wide variety of writers and artists, each grappling with home/identity/family/borders in different ways. It struck me while reading - especially Victoria Blanco's essay on El......more

Goodreads review by Catapult on March 04, 2020

In the first published anthology of writing from Catapult magazine, twenty writers share stories of migration, family, the search for home and belonging, and what it means to exist between languages and cultures.......more

Goodreads review by Nicole on February 23, 2020

"A Map is Only One Story" needs to be integrated in history courses internationally. As a social studies teacher, I anxiously awaited this book for months prior to its release--this book exceeded my expectations because the diversity of voices represented throughout the essays are powerful represent......more

Goodreads review by Preeti on February 09, 2020

What I love most about essay collections is that they introduce me to many new writers I would not have otherwise come across. This anthology was well worth the read just for that. There actually quite a few essays by South Asian women in here too! Some of my favorite essays were, A Map of Lost Thin......more

Goodreads review by Elaine on May 03, 2021

Enjoyed this essay collection a lot! Hearing the stories of such a diverse group of writers really brought me around the world and into the homes and hearts of their families. There were definitely mediocre to weak pieces in the book, but I felt engaged overall and generally reminded of my privilege......more