Tahsim is eight, loves buttered corn, and hates letters—especially those from the immigration office. Because his mother, Xatun, can neither speak nor read German, he becomes her interpreter, navigating waiting rooms, bureaucratic jargon, and the threat of deportation. At home, Xatun is a linguistic genius full of wit and stories, but outside she’s at a loss and resorts to simple words with flawed sentence structure. While Tahsim struggles to fit in at school with made-up religions and perfect German, he finds himself feeling ashamed of his mother more and more often. Until he realizes that she isn’t the problem—but rather the question he’s been asking her his whole life.

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