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Tell Me How it Ends

An Essay in Forty Questions

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Tell Me How it Ends

By: Valeria Luiselli
Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard
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A moving, eye-opening polemic about the US-Mexico border and what happens to the tens of thousands of unaccompanied Mexican and Central American children arriving in the US without papers

‘We are driving across Oklahoma in early June when we first hear about the waves of children arriving, alone and undocumented, from Mexico and Central America. Tens of thousands have been detained at the border. What will happen to them? Where are the parents? And why have they undertaken a terrifying, life-threatening journey to enter the United States?’

Valeria Luiselli works as a volunteer at the federal immigration court in New York City, translating for unaccompanied migrant children. Out of her work has come this book – a search for answers and an urgent appeal for humanity and compassion in response to mass migration, the most significant global phenomenon of our time.

‘So true and moving that it filled me with hopeless hope’ Ali Smith

‘Harrowing, intimate, quietly brilliant’ New York Times

‘The first must-read book of the Trump era’ Texas Observer

‘Angry and affecting. A slight book with a big impact’ Financial Times

‘There are many books addressing the plight of refugees. Tell Me How It Ends – lucid, plain-speaking and authoritative – is one of the most powerful’ Big Issue

Emigration & Immigration Freedom & Security Politics & Government Racism & Discrimination Social Sciences Discrimination Latin American Mexico Human Rights
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Critic reviews

‘An essay about humanity with its back up against the border wall, and is so true and moving that it filled me with hopeless hope’ Ali Smith
‘The first must-read book of the Trump era’ Texas Observer
‘Harrowing, intimate, quietly brilliant’ New York Times
‘In this compelling, devastating book, Luiselli documents the huge injustices done to the children by both the American and Mexican governments, and by the public who treat them as “illegal aliens”, rather than as what they truly are: refugees of war’ Observer
‘Angry and affecting. A slight book with a big impact’ Financial Times
‘There are many books addressing the plight of refugees. Tell Me How It Ends – lucid, plain-speaking and authoritative – is one of the most powerful’ Big Issue
‘The kind of reading experience that rips your heart out. This is required reading’ Vol. 1 Brooklyn
‘A remarkable little work that says more than books ten times its size’ GQ
‘With anger and lucidity, Luiselli depicts the nightmares these children are forced to flee in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, as well as the destructive ignorance and bigotry that awaits them in America’ Chicago Tribune
‘Combines the skills of a journalist with a novelist’s empathy’ Times Literary Supplement
‘Luiselli takes us inside the grand dream of migration, offering the valuable reminder that exceedingly few immigrants abandon their past and brave death to come to America for dark or nasty reasons. They come as an expression of hope’ NPR
‘Be prepared to cry. Read it, read it, read it and then share it’ Texas Book Festival
‘The very least we can all do is hear these stories. Read this book’ Proximity Magazine
All stars
Most relevant
With the world being shaped by migration, this essay comes at a timely fashion. Exploring the nuances of this reality, Valeria Luiselli, a skilful and gifted Mexican writer knows the migratory experience first-hand having travelled across the globe. This compassionate, short book finds her in a head-on confrontation with daily reality.

Based on her experiences working as an interpreter for dozens of Central American child migrants, she speaks to those who risked their lives crossing Mexico to escape their fraught existence back home. To stay in the US, each must be vetted by the Citizenship and Immigration Services, a vast, impersonal bureaucracy. It's her job to help these kids, but in order to do so, they must answer 40 questions that will determine their fate.

The truth about the crossing may be much more brutal in reality, with 80% of women and girls who cross from Mexico to the US being raped, hence some of the children appear evasive when answering questions. But this book is fueled, in no small part, by Luiselli's bottles up shame and rage. She's aghast at the gap between American ideals and the way they actually treat undocumented children, yet her writing is measured and fair-minded.

Luiselli takes us inside the grand dream of migration, offering the valuable reminder that exceedingly few immigrants abandon their past and brave death to come to America for dark or nasty reasons. Fantastic read.

A human portrait of child migrants

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Listened to this after wanting to do more research on the American migrant 'crisis' after listening to American Dirt. Found this book to be very eye opening and a good way to learn about a subject not widely reported on in the UK.

Informative, yet harrowing

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This should be required reading for everyone. A succinct exposition on the interconnected problems giving rise to immigration into the US that concern us all

short and sweet

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