The Hungry Season
A Journey of War, Love, and Survival
The Hungry Season
A Journey of War, Love, and Survival
Little, Brown and Company, September 2023
* Best Nonfiction of 2023* Kirkus Reviews
*Editors’ Choice* New York Times Book Review
Longlisted for the California Book Award & Plutarch Award for Biography
In the tradition of Katherine Boo and Tracy Kidder, a deeply reported drama ranging from the mist-covered mountains of Laos to the sunbaked flatlands of Fresno, California, tracing one woman’s quest to overcome the wounds inflicted by war and family alike.
As combat rages across the lush highlands of Vietnam and Laos, a child is born. Ia Moua enters life at the bottom of her world’s social order, both because she is part of Laos’s Hmong minority and because she is female. But when brutal communist rule upends her life and strips Ia of all she loves, this young girl resolves to chart her own defiant path. With ceaseless ambition and an indestructible spirit, Ia builds a new life for herself and, before long, for her children, first in the refugee camps of Thailand and then in the industrial heartland of California’s San Joaquin Valley. At the root of her success is a simple act: growing rice just as her ancestors did. When she gains power and independence, however, Ia must confront all that she left behind—and find a place in her heart for those who left her.
Meticulously reported over seven years and written with the intimacy of a novel, The Hungry Season is an unforgettable tale about hard-won survival and the nourishment that matters most.
Praise for
The Hungry Season
“Lyrical… Hamilton is a master observer, as attentive to Ia’s world as Ia is to her seedlings.”
“A radiant work of compelling portraiture… Hamilton spent hundreds of hours with her subject, and the result is a brilliant narrative that blends an intimate story into the larger cultural, political, and agricultural history of Laos and the Hmong people. Comparisons to Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers are certainly apt, and book clubs will quickly embrace the stark humanity in this unforgettable title.”
“Sensitive and carefully written… A deeply reported story of aspiration and desperation among an immigrant Hmong community in California’s Central Valley.”
“[An] intimate work of narrative nonfiction…”
“I can’t recall any telling of the refugee’s story with so much depth, texture, and heart. Lisa M. Hamilton is a devoted, inspiring listener and The Hungry Season shines with empathy. I loved this book.”
—Ted Conover, National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author of Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing and Cheap Land Colorado
“The Hungry Season is a deeply reported and intricately narrated story of displacement, homelessness, and identity. Hamilton crafts an intimate, searing portrait of one marginalized woman, devastated by politics and poverty, patriarchy and tradition, wars and colonialism, and the resilient way she finds solace and strength in one thing that brings her home: rice.”
—Suki Kim, New York Times bestselling author of Without You, There Is No Us and The Interpreter
“The Hungry Season reads like a novel while giving the reader an eyewitness account of Laos’s history and a vivid portrayal of one remarkable life. Ia Moua’s incredible tale of survival puts our daily problems in perspective and reminds us of the resilience of the human spirit and the power of defining our own paths. A must-read.”
—Le Ly Hayslip, author of When Heaven and Earth Changed Places and Child of War, Woman of Peace
“Hamilton writes with precision and grace about displacement, family ties, and how the human connection to land—and what grows there—can serve as a lifeline. This is a tremendously reported story about a tremendous life.”
—Lauren Markham, author of The Faraway Brothers
“The Hungry Season is a rare feat of reportage. Hamilton devotes herself so completely to learning the story of Ia Moua that there seems to be no barrier between writer and subject—the two voices have fused. The result is transcendent. It does not happen often, that the best of nonfiction reads like the best of fiction. This is that sublime book.”
—Mark Arax, bestselling author of The Dreamt Land and The King of California