Transoceanic Lights tells of three families who immigrate to the US from post-Mao China. The unnamed narrator’s overbearing mother is plagued with regret as financial burdens and lack of trust begin to rend apart her marriage. Her only solace lies in the distant promise of better lives for her children. More about this book >

• HONOREE 5 Under 35 2016 >

  Selected by Karen E. Bender >

  Karen E. Bender

  

  Karen E. Bender is the author of the novels A Town of Empty Rooms and Like Normal People. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, Story, The Harvard Review, The Iowa Review, Guenica, and other magazines. Her stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, and have won two Pushcart prizes. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, novelist Robert Anthony Siegel, and their two children.