Mary Pipher

"Though Lincoln, Nebraska, seems a strange gathering place for refugees from all corners of the globe, it is the setting for Mary Pipher's The Middle of Everywhere, an ardent, anecdotal, and at times moving study of some new arrivals to the United States. Pipher emphasizes the resiliency of the refugees — from Laos, Bosnia, Northern Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and the former Soviet Union — whose homeland tales of death, privation, torture, and multi-pronged persecution vary only in the details.