Vilcek Foundation

When it comes to American Odysseys: Writings by New Americans, we won’t object if you judge this book by its cover—though we’re sure you’ll find just as much to enjoy inside.  This striking volume, with its gilded, silver-foiled edges, and an engraved pencil fitted into a clothbound hardcover, contains the best contemporary immigrant writers in America today.

New from the Vilcek Foundation Press, American Odysseys is an anthology of twenty-two novelists, poets, and short story writers.  Among the featured writers are Ethiopian-born Dinaw Mengestu, the recipient of the 2011 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature; Yugoslavian-born Téa Obreht, the youngest author to receive the Orange Prize in Fiction; and Chinese-born Yiyun Li, a MacArthur Genius grantee.  The foreword is by U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic, the winner of the 2011 Vilcek Prize for Literature. 

All the authors represented in the anthology were drawn from our shortlist for the 2011 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature, as judged by an impressive panel of writers, editors, critics and other experts.  The Creative Promise award, added in 2009 to the Foundation’s annual Vilcek Prizes program, honors young immigrants in the arts and sciences, and represents an extension of our overarching mission to publicize the immeasurable value foreign-born individuals bring to America.

Jury panelist Liesl Schillinger, literary critic for The New York Times, said, “It was a thrill for me to discover—and in some cases reencounter—the writers who submitted work to the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise.  I had already read Dinaw Mengestu’s excellent first novel The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears—about Ethiopian immigrants in a gentrifying neighborhood of Washington, DC, and Simon Van Booy’s tender, haunting story collection The Secret Lives of People in Love, and the playful, intricate, philosophical poetry of Matthea Harvey. But it was not until I was given the opportunity to judge the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise, which introduced me to the artistry of the brilliant newcomers Téa Obreht, Ilya Kaminsky, and Porochista Khakpour (and so many others), that I considered the common thread that links them all: their foreign birth.  Their different heritages, experiences, and priorities immeasurably broaden and enrich the American cultural tapestry, and I am delighted that this anthology will allow readers to profit from the wealth of talent these writers bring to our shared culture.” 

Like Ms. Schillinger, Charles Simic, one of the few immigrant poets appointed to serve as a U.S. Poet Laureate, was struck by the relationship between being foreign-born and a writer. “To be an immigrant is to live in perpetual inner turmoil,” he writes.  “While some may view the immigrant’s inner turmoil as a curse, for a writer it is an ideal opportunity.  Finding oneself in such a pickle brings us overnight to an understanding of the human condition that would ordinarily take a lifetime to achieve.”  This understanding is intimately explored over a variety of genres in this anthology, from Miho Nonaka’s poetry, inspired by fourteenth-century Noh theater, to Ismet Prcic’s wrenching stories set in the aftermath of the Bosnian war, and to Daniel Alarcón’s novel about the relationship between two brothers, one American and the other not.    

Yet understanding is only one part of the process; talent and dedication also are prerequisites.  And we found large measures of both in these accomplished authors, seventeen of whom write in their second language of English. Book designer Joe Shouldice, of YesYesYes Design, chose to symbolize their dedication to their craft through a custom-engraved pencil.  “The pencil was chosen as a symbol of the writer and of the writing process,” explained Mr. Shouldice.  “For many, it was the first introduction to creating letters, words, and, later on, sentences.  The stories contained within are of a personal nature, and the intimate quality of the pencil seemed to be the perfect complement.”

American Odysseys is already turning heads. The book’s bold design and exceptional literary content have led to recognition by the Book Industry Guild of New York; in April 2012, it will receive an award at the 26th Annual New York Books Show. We are confident it will not be the final word on this unprecedented anthology.