The Sorrows of Others

2024 WHITING AWARD WINNER A NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION 5 UNDER 35 REPUBLIC OF CONSCIOUSNESS PRIZE LONGLIST THE STORY PRIZE LONGLIST 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. "Writers with virtually perfect debuts are certainly rare; Zhang joins that short list with a magnificent ten-story collection filled with lost souls aching for connection on both sides of the world." --Booklist starred review 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 customs keeps their marriage from falling apart. A woman grapples with what it means to care for another, and the limits of that care, when her dying husband returns from Beijing years after abandoning her. And during a rainy summer in Texas, a visitor exposes the unspoken but unburiable history that binds two families together. Ada Zhang writes with startling honesty and love about lives young and old, in a stunning debut that explores what happens when we leave home and what happens when we stay, and the selves we meet and shed in the process of becoming.