A Map is Only One Story: Twenty Writers on Immigration, Family, and the Meaning of Home edited by Nicole Chung & Mensah Demary

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.

With writing by Lauren Alwan, Cinelle Barnes, Victoria Blanco, Jennifer S. Cheng, Nina Li Coomes, Bix Gabriel, Nur Nasreen Ibrahim, Deepti Kapoor, Porochista Khakpour, Soraya Membreno, Kamna Muddagouni, Jamila Osman, Nadia Owusu, Niina Pollari, Krystal A. Sital, Natalia Sylvester, Sharine Taylor, Kenechi Uzor, Steph Wong Ken, and Shing Yin Khor.

Nicole Chung is the editor in chief of Catapult magazine and the author of All You Can Ever Know.

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