Helen Thorpe is a journalist who has written nonfiction books about people who have changed countries: immigrants seeking legal status, military veterans returning home from conflict, and refugees in the midst of resettlement. She has also published a collection of linked essays about her family’s moves from Ireland to England and then the United States, and their subsequent attempts to maintain ties with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents on the other side of the Atlantic. The New Yorker has said, “Thorpe is meticulously observant, always attuned to the poignant ironies of her topic.”

Listen to an audio version of “Great Hunger,” from her collection of essays, Finding Motherland.

Join the mailing list to get the latest news.

Photo by Marea Evans