Mia Alvar is a

Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...

-American writer based in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. She won a PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for ''In the Country''.

Life

Alvar was born in

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

and at six moved to

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...

with her parents, joining her uncle already living there. After four years in Bahrain, they moved to New York City, where her mother then began graduate school in special education at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. She received her undergraduate degree at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

in 2000 and earned her MFA from the School of Arts at Columbia University in 2007. While a senior in college, Alvar returned to the Philippines for the first time in ten years and began recording her experiences of Manila which provided material for her stories. Her critically regarded debut work, ''In the Country'', features nine stories about exiled Filipino workers living in the Middle East and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

who lead "morally messy" and "unpredictable" lives full of "contradictions and weaknesses". These characters are part of the Philippine diaspora: workers dispersed around the globe for economic reasons to work as maids and nurses and in other jobs. Alvar offers "deft portraits of transnational wanderers" who are "blessed and cursed with mobility," according to ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' critic J. K. Ramakrishnan, with a major theme in her work being the cultural conflicts of immigrants. Critic Maureen Corrigan on '' NPR'' described Alvar's writing style as gorgeous. Ramakrishnan compared her characters to ones written by

Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognized as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writin ...

. ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'' critic Amy Gentry described Alvar's prose as "precise and patient" with a gift for "grounded human-scale metaphors". '' Christian Science Monitor'' critic Steve Donoghue described Alvar's talent as the "smart depiction of lives lived between two worlds" offering "vivid glimpses of street life in Manila." ''In the Country'' won numerous awards, including the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...

''Discover Great New Writers'' list, and was listed as a ''New York Times'' "Editors' Choice" book. In 2016, ''In the Country'' received the

Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize The Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize is a literary award presented annually for the "best book-length work of prose fiction" by an American woman. The award has been given by the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies and the Depar ...

, only the second short story collection to win in the award's history.

Works

*''In the Country: Stories'', New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015. ,

References

External links

Mia Alvar website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alvar, Mia Columbia University School of the Arts alumni Writers from Manila Harvard College alumni Writers from New York City Living people Filipino women writers Year of birth missing (living people)