Helen Thorpe
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Helen Thorpe

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Helen Thorpe is a journalist and an author of four prize-winning nonfiction books. She has written three books of narrative nonfiction published by Scribner Books. Just Like Us was published in 2009, Soldier Girls in 2014, and The Newcomers in 2017. In those books Thorpe described the efforts of undocumented immigrants to gain legal status and a sense of belonging in American society, the challenges that veterans faced on returning home from foreign conflicts, and the experiences of families with refugee status as they attempt to resettle in the United States. Most recently, she published a digital-only collection of essays called Finding Motherland: Essays about Family, Food, and Migration. Her work has received great praise from other authors. This is what several prominent writers had to say about The Newcomers: "In this time of great anxiety, this splendid, humane, beautifully crafted book is a reminder of America’s proud, historic role as a beacon of hope to the world. And it is a terrific story." —Doris Kearns Goodwin "Helen Thorpe didn’t miss a detail during the year she spent watching 22 young refugees how to speak English (difficult) and how to be American (even more difficult). No one with a pulse could feel to be moved by this beautifully reported book." —Anne Fadiman "I loved this book. It brims with teenage life, with a sense of America being reborn, of new Americans being made. Cultures converge in a high school classroom were teenagers – with all the energy, earnestness, and embarrassment we expect, but also with trauma – learn English with the help of a teacher who appreciates all the ways it’s not easy. The Newcomers teaches us about parts of the world we can barely imagine, and it also takes us into their new American homes. Helen Thorpe, herself the child of immigrants, is a terrific writer and a steadfast character witness to these people so many of us fear." —Ted Conover "Few books could be more vital, in this particular moment or in any moment, than this book. Helen Thorpe writes expensively about one school, one classroom, one teacher, one groups of students – student who hail from the most severe places in the world and come together at South High. Confused, trouble, bright, magnificent: they converge, ostensibly to learn English, learning so much more than a language – learning about us and about themselves, all the bad and all the good. You need to meet these young people. Once you do, everything you read or hear or say will be illuminated and changed." —Jeff Hobbs Malcolm Gladwell has said of her previous work: "Helen Thorpe has taken policy and turned it into literature." Thorpe was previously a staff writer at The New York Observer, The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section, and Texas Monthly. She has also written freelance stories for the New York Times Magazine, Westword, and 5280. She was born in London to Irish parents, and grew up in the United States, where she became a naturalized citizen at 21. She lives in Denver, Colorado. Author Photograph by Marea Evans.
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  • Just Like Us cover art

    • Just Like Us

    • The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America
    • By: Helen Thorpe
    • Narrated by: Paula Christensen
    • Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
    • Release date: 05-05-2011
    • Language: English
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  • Finding Motherland: Essays About Family, Food, & Migration cover art

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