Set in Canada in the 1980s, an Indian-Canadian immigrant woman travels abroad, attempting to learn how to grieve her husband and sons after a terrorist attack on the plane kills them on their way to India.

After a terrifying illness, an Indian grandmother drops everything and moves to live with her son and his wife in California. What she finds is a family that has begun to leave behind the traditions she cherishes, and her desperate attempts to save them only intensify her suffering.

When a lesbian Cuban woman moves to the United States, she finds her hopes of romantic relationships, familial reconciliation, and prosperity threatened by an onslaught of mysterious medical concerns.

A Scottish Foreign Scholar tries to help the beggars he encounters at his university in India, but finds his outlook on life greatly changed by the sincerity of those he once looked down upon.

Just before an American college student is set to leave for the airport after visiting her extended family in Ethiopia, she realizes her suitcases are too heavy. A fight breaks out between her relatives about what items should travel with her at their behest, versus which ones deserve to be left behind.

When he discovers gold near his village, an African man dissatisfied with his lot in life develops new obsessions, flouts old responsibilities, and ultimately loses more than he gains.

A woman in British Columbia reflects on her Japanese friend from childhood who was swept away from her during World War II-era Japanese internment.

A young man contracts an intestinal disease as he travels to a tropical island and chooses to fast for his physical and spiritual health. As he develops an intimacy with the island, he becomes convinced that this fast will cure his illness — despite what other Western travelers believe.

In colonial Angola, a Herero woman torn between her family and her oppressive white husband finds herself accused of disloyalty on all sides. Despite significant sacrifice, disaster ensues when she tries to honor both commitments.

A Bosnian journalist visits America during the Bosnian ethnic cleansing and moves into a dirty Chicago apartment with a woman he once met and her on-and-off boyfriend. He takes on a series of humiliating jobs and tries to avoid thinking about the unknown fate of his parents.