And I don't remember ever reading a collection I loved as much as this one.

I don't know if I've ever given 5 stars to a story collection. But there are some collections that do dive deeper than many novels out there, and In the Country is one of them. I am a person who likes to dive deep instead of dabble. I usually prefer novels to story collections. Exploring the universal experience of loss, displacement, and the longing to connect across borders both real and imagined, In the Country speaks to the heart of everyone who has ever searched for a place to call home. The novella-length title story follows the unexpected fates of a journalist and a nurse during the 1970s labor strikes in Manila. A college student in Manila struggling to write fiction knows that her brother, who has gone abroad to make money, is the one living a life that stories are made of. A woman living in Bahrain faces a challenge that compels her to question her marriage. One man smuggles drugs from his pharmacy in New York to Manila for his ailing father, only to discover an alarming truth about his mother.

Mia Alvar's stunning debut gives us a vivid, insightful picture of the Filipino diaspora: exiles and emigrants and wanderers uprooting their families to begin new lives in the Middle East and America-and, sometimes, turning back. A powerful, globe-trotting debut short-story collection from an exciting new writer-vivid, character-driven stories about Filipinos from every walk of life.

In the country by mia alvar