Guest editor Thuy Dinh introduces WWB’s new issue “Untethered States: Literature of the Vietnamese Diaspora.”

In this excerpt from Igiaba Scego’s Cassandra a Mogadiscio, a writer considers how her diasporic Somali family has managed to remain close despite the distances—and the many languages—between them.

“For as long as Palestinians have resisted their occupiers, a companion narrative questioning our very existence, a profoundly dehumanizing narrative rooted in the West’s still unexamined anti-Arab racism, has also thrived,” writes Lena Khalaf…

“We’re living in a world where both languages and people are constantly in flux. In this novel, I wanted to focus on a small group of people making their way through that world.”

“We have to fight for our own voice locally and nationally before we can fight for a place in the world.”