She is now managing partner of Gottlieb & Wang LLP, a firm dedicated to advocating for education and civil rights.

She wrote Beautiful Country on her iPhone, during her subway commute to and from work at a national law firm, where she was elected to partnership within two years of joining the firm. Qian Julie's first book is a poignant literary memoir that follows the family through those years, as they grappled with poverty, manual labor in sweatshops, lack of access to medical care, and the perpetual threat of deportation.Ī graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College-where she juggled classes and extracurriculars with four part-time jobs-Qian Julie is now a litigator. For five years thereafter, the three lived in the shadows of undocumented life in New York City. At age 7, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, with her parents. Qian Julie was born in Shijiazhuang, China. In restrained but beautiful prose, Wang honours her family's sacrifices, but alerts us to the urgent realisation that they should not be necessary' Nesrine Malik The book casts an urgent light on a reality that extends way beyond America's borders' Hisham Matar, author of The Return I was moved by the love and resilience of this family thrust into darkness. beautifully written, with vivid scenes that linger in the mind long after finishing it' Helena Merriman 'A powerful, gripping insight into the world of an undocumented migrant in New York. Told from a child's perspective, in a voice that is intimate, poignant and startlingly lyrical, Beautiful Country is the story of a girl who learns first to live - and then escape - an invisible life. Qian Julie Wang's memoir is an unforgettable account of what it means to live under the perpetual threat of deportation and the small joys and sheer determination that kept her family afloat in a new land. Thus begins an extraordinary story that describes, in vivid colours, days labouring in sweatshops and sushi factories, nights scavenging the streets for furniture, and the terrifying moment when the family emerges from the shadows to seek emergency medical treatment for Qian's mother.

Unable to speak English at first, Qian and her parents must work wherever they can to survive, all while she battles hunger and loneliness at school.

Qian is just seven when she moves to America, the 'Beautiful Country', where she and her parents find that the roads of New York City are not paved with gold, but crushing fear and scarcity. In China she was the daughter of professors. Moving, beautiful, heartbreaking and even funny.

Beautiful country qian