“Helen Thorpe has taken policy and turned it into literature.” –Malcolm Gladwell
Helen Thorpe was born in London to Irish parents. She is an award-winning journalist who lives in Denver, Colorado. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Texas Monthly, and 5280.
Her newest book, The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom, follows the lives of twenty-two teenagers from around the world over the course of one school year as they land at South High School in Denver, Colorado, in a beginner-level English Language Acquisition class. Speaking no English and unfamiliar with American culture, they face the enormous challenge of adapting to life in the developed world even as they struggle to understand what their teacher is saying.
The newcomer students come from nations convulsed by drought, famine, or war. Many arrive directly from refugee camps, some after having lost one or both parents. Together, their class represents a microcosm of the global refugee crisis as a whole. The Newcomers tells the story of what happens during the students’ first year in America, and it follows the journeys of three families in particular—from Iraq, Burma, and the Democratic Republic of Congo—illuminating what life is like in refugee-producing parts of the world. “Few books could be more vital, in this particular moment,” writes Jeff Hobbs (The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace). The book is due out from Scribner on November 14, 2017.
