Where Rivers Part
A Story of My Mother's Life
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Narrated by:
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Pamela Xiong
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Kao Kalia Yang
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By:
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Kao Kalia Yang
About this listen
This powerful memoir about a Hmong family’s epic journey to safety is a profound “testament to the miraculous strength of women and the indomitable resolve of the human spirit” (Cristina Henríquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans).
Born in 1961 in war-torn Laos, Tswb’s childhood was marked by the violence of America’s Secret War and the CIA recruitment of the Hmong and other ethnic minorities into the lost cause. By the time Tswb was a teenager, the US had completely vacated Laos, and the country erupted into genocidal attacks on the Hmong people, who were labeled as traitors. Fearing for their lives, Tswb and her family left everything they knew behind and fled their village for the jungle.
Perpetually on the run and on the brink of starvation, Tswb eventually crossed paths with the man who would become her future husband. Leaving her own mother behind, she joined his family at a refugee camp, a choice that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Eventually becoming a mother herself, Tswb raised her daughters in a state of constant fear and hunger until they were able to emigrate to the US, where the determined couple enrolled in high school even though they were both nearly thirty and worked grueling jobs to provide for their children.
Now, her daughter, Kao Kalia Yang, reveals her mother’s astonishing saga with tenderness and clarity, giving voice to the countless resilient refugees who are often overlooked as one of the essential foundations of this country. “Haunting and painfully relevant” (Booklist), Where Rivers Part is destined to become a classic.
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Good audiobook but narrator struggles with basic pronunciation
- By Kate on 06-04-15
By: Anne Fadiman
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The Siege
- A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Ben Macintyre
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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As the American hostage crisis in Iran boiled into its seventh month in the spring of 1980, six heavily armed gunman barged into the Iranian embassy in London, taking twenty-six hostages. What followed over the next six days was an increasingly tense standoff, one that threatened at any moment to spill into a bloodbath.
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like stories of history
- By John on 01-07-25
By: Ben Macintyre
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The Latehomecomer
- A Hmong Family Memoir
- By: Kao Kalia Yang
- Narrated by: Kao Kalia Yang
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 70s and 80s, thousands of Hmong families made the journey from the war-torn jungles of Laos to the overcrowded refugee camps of Thailand and onward to the United States, all in search of a new place to call home. Decades later, their experiences remain largely unknown. Kao Kalia Yang was driven to tell her own family's story after her grandmother’s death. The Latehomecomer is a tribute to that grandmother, a remarkable woman whose spirit held her family together.
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Great Hmong history, lousy literature
- By Isadore Ducasse on 10-12-18
By: Kao Kalia Yang
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The Song Poet
- A Memoir of My Father
- By: Kao Kalia Yang
- Narrated by: Kao Kalia Yang
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Bee lost his father as a young boy and keenly felt his orphanhood. He would wander from one neighbor to the next, collecting the things they said to each other, whispering the words to himself at night until one day a song was born. Bee sings the life of his people through the war-torn jungle and a Thai refugee camp. But the songs fall away in the cold, bitter world of a Minneapolis housing project and on the factory floor until, with the death of Bee's mother, the songs leave him for good.
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Beautiful, full of sadness, power, and heart.
- By Melissa L. Magana on 04-27-17
By: Kao Kalia Yang
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Dogland
- Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show
- By: Tommy Tomlinson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Tommy Tomlinson was watching a dog show on television a few years ago when he had a sudden thought: Are those dogs happy? How about pet dogs—are they happy? Those questions sparked a quest to venture inside the dog-show world, in search of a deeper understanding of the longtime relationship between dogs and humans, and here, in Dogland he shares his surprising, entertaining, and moving adventures.
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good story but mixed message
- By Kelly on 05-01-24
By: Tommy Tomlinson
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The Invisible Kingdom
- Reimagining Chronic Illness
- By: Meghan O'Rourke
- Narrated by: Meghan O'Rourke
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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A silent epidemic of chronic illnesses afflicts tens of millions of Americans: These are diseases that are poorly understood, frequently marginalized, and can go undiagnosed and unrecognized altogether. Renowned writer Meghan O’Rourke delivers a revelatory investigation into this elusive category of “invisible” illness that encompasses autoimmune diseases, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and now long COVID, synthesizing the personal and the universal to help all of us through this new frontier.
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Humbling. Heart-Opening. Disturbing.
- By Melissa E. Penn on 03-02-22
By: Meghan O'Rourke
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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
- A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
- By: Anne Fadiman
- Narrated by: Pamela Xiong
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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When three-month-old Lia Lee arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos.
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Good audiobook but narrator struggles with basic pronunciation
- By Kate on 06-04-15
By: Anne Fadiman
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The Siege
- A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Ben Macintyre
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the American hostage crisis in Iran boiled into its seventh month in the spring of 1980, six heavily armed gunman barged into the Iranian embassy in London, taking twenty-six hostages. What followed over the next six days was an increasingly tense standoff, one that threatened at any moment to spill into a bloodbath.
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like stories of history
- By John on 01-07-25
By: Ben Macintyre
What listeners say about Where Rivers Part
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- diane lee
- 03-26-24
It’s a story about all our grandmothers and mothers life
Your memoir about your mother’s life is a reflection of similar stories of other Hmong Mothers and Grandmothers that could not be told because they didn’t know where to begin and where it ends. The trauma and suffering petrified in their throats. My grandmother would only tell me the happy stories and never could tell me the dark stories that were also part of her life story. I’m so thankful for your amazing ability to create a beautiful memoir that made sense of the memories and stories that felt like a beautiful quilt in a book. I cried from the beginning to the end.
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- Mawn-lee-uh Shawng
- 04-09-24
Rivers of tears
I cried and I cried yesterday, the day before, today listening to Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother's Life by Kao Kalia Yang. I listened as if I am hearing my own mothers' story being told of yearning, running, of fear, death, depression, of love, hope, warmth, and resilience. The narrative is heavy, but it is so needed.
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- Princess Eggie
- 03-27-24
Poor Performance, Beautiful Story
I purchased and listened to Kao Kalia’s previous books and they were beautifully written. Although her voice was a bit monotonous at times, no one knew better than the author on when to make voice inflections. I cried when I listened to her previous books. When I listened to Pamela Xiong’s performance, I was annoyed. Words like parents’ turned into parentses, brothers’ turned into brotherses, etc. The reader had a good understanding and pronunciation when it came to the Hmong words, but her understanding of the English language seemed to be lacking. Her voice inflections and singsong voice seemed inappropriate at times and was such a distraction that I decided to purchase the e-book and read it myself. I wish Kao Kalia had read the book herself as she did with her first 2 books.
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1 person found this helpful
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- M
- 04-22-24
Soul touching and deep
What a great book! Moments of tears and sadness. I love reading about what my parents and grandparents endured. I felt like I was there in that time with them. Thank you for giving me a piece of the experience. I appreciate my mom so much more. ❤️
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