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Wandering Souls

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

This program includes a multicast narration.
"Aoife Hinds, Ioanna Kimbook, and Ainsleigh Barber perform this stunning debut historical novel, which follows three orphaned Vietnamese refugees." - AudioFile Magazine

"A deeply humane and genre-defying work of love and uncompromising hope."—Ocean Vuong


A boldly imagined debut novel about three Vietnamese siblings who seek refuge in the UK, expanding into a luminous meditation on ancestry and love

There are the goodbyes and then the fishing out of the bodies—everything in between is speculation.
After the last American troops leave Vietnam, siblings Anh, Thanh, and Minh begin a perilous journey to Hong Kong with the promise that their parents and younger siblings will soon follow. But when tragedy strikes, the three children are left orphaned, and sixteen-year-old Anh becomes the caretaker for her two younger brothers overnight.
In the years that follow, Anh and her brothers resettle in the UK and confront their new identities as refugees, first in overcrowded camps and resettlement centers and then, later, in a modernizing London plagued by social inequality and raging anti-immigrant sentiment. Anh works in a clothing factory to pay their bills. Minh loiters about with fellow unemployed high school dropouts. Thanh, the youngest, plays soccer with his British friends after class. As they mature, each sibling reckons with survivor's guilt, unmoored by their parents' absence. With every choice they make, their paths diverge further, until it's unclear if love alone can keep them together.
Told through lyrical narrative threads, historical research, voices from lost family, and notes by an unnamed narrator determined to chart their fate, Wandering Souls captures the lives of a family marked by war and loss yet relentless in the pursuit of a better future. With urgency and precision, it affirms that the most important stories are those we claim for ourselves, establishing Cecile Pin as a masterful new literary voice.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 16, 2023
      Pin follows three refugees out of Vietnam to England in her powerful debut. In 1978, Thi Anh, 16, and two younger brothers, Minh and Thanh, survive the treacherous journey to Hong Kong, but their parents and four younger siblings drown, events prefigured in Pin’s matter-of-fact opening line: “There are the goodbyes and then the fishing out of the bodies—everything in between is speculation.” Anh is bitter about her uncle in the U.S., who urged her family to flee and told them stories of his life in New Haven, Conn., and lies to aid workers, saying they have no family abroad. Months later, they are resettled in Sopley, England, and struggle to adjust while waiting for public housing. As the years pass, Anh works in a garment factory, Minh and Thanh progress through school with varying degrees of success—Minh drops out and deals drugs, Thanh finishes his A-levels, but abandons his plans for university, fearing his grades aren’t good enough for scholarships. Pin smoothly juggles Anh’s narrative with snippets of speeches and news reports that provide conflicting views of Margaret Thatcher’s policies toward refugees, as well chapters from the perspectives of the ghost of a younger brother, refugees who are sexually assaulted in Thailand, and a narrator—unidentified until the end—who feels great pressure to do justice to their family’s experiences. With concision and clarity, the author shows a deep understanding of how upheaval can splinter families.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Aoife Hinds, Ioanna Kimbook, and Ainsleigh Barber perform this stunning debut historical novel, which follows three orphaned Vietnamese refugees. Siblings Anh, Thanh, and Minh flee Vietnam at the end of the war, hoping to meet their parents in a refugee camp in Hong Kong. But after the rest of their family are found dead, the three children are sent to the UK to start a new life. Aoife Hinds delivers the main portions of the audiobook beautifully, imbuing her performance with all of the characters' intense sorrow and hope for the future. Ioanna Kimbook and Ainsleigh Barber narrate intervals and short chapters, bringing the minor characters to life and helping listeners follow the story's unique structure. K.D.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

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