Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses depictions of war and displacement, infant death, racism, xenophobia, depression, and other mental health conditions.

Kao Kalia Yang, a prominent Hmong American author, activist and storyteller, is the author of Somewhere in the Unknown World, and the narrator of the final chapter in the collection. Yang was born in a Thai refugee camp in 1980 and came to the United States with her family at the age of seven, settling in Minnesota. She received a bachelor’s degree in American studies, women’s and gender studies, and cross-cultural studies from Carleton College and an master of fine arts in creative nonfiction from Columbia University. Her first book, The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir (2008), is a poignant account of her family’s journey as refugees from Laos to the United States. The Song Poet: a Memoir of My Father (2016) addresses similar themes, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In addition to these memoirs, Yang has also written a number of books for children, as well as the libretto for an opera adaptation of The Song Poet.

The Prologue to Somewhere in the Unknown World establishes Yang as a mouthpiece amplifying the stories of other refugees, rather than as the sole author.