It seems almost a kind of magical thinking that caused people to believe that keeping capable, highly educated people at home actually de-incentivizing them from entering the workforce was a good way to win the Cold War.
Told by Palin Ni Lap, a European-schooled economist from a small, unnamed South Asian country, stranded with his American wife in a peasant family's hovel during a monsoon, it seethes with the complex rage, pride and frustration of an educated third world aristo who can't find an easy place for himself athome or abroad.