Puzzle Notes

Dear Friends:

Guest constructor Hoang-Kim Vu's "The Long Way Home" is 4/5 difficulty.

A note from the constructor regarding the puzzle: Each passage was different. Some had mere minutes to decide what they could carry before fleeing to a USAF C-130. Some tried to escape nine times before finally making it to Malaysia, then Sweden. Some had to weigh the hard choice to leave their family behind when a single seat opened up. Some made the journey with their most valuable possessions sewn into the lining of their clothing. Some didn't survive the journey at all. This puzzle attempts to honor those family stories by sharing them with a new audience.

Some clues in the .puz version of the puzzle have been Anglicized due to limitations of the .puz file format. Please refer to the .jpz file or the PDF to solve with the intended diacritics.

Hoang-Kim Vu (he/him) works on a global malaria research project in Washington, D.C. His crosswords have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today; he also published the first non-Powell crossword for Vox. When he's not solving or constructing, Kim enjoys collecting passport stamps, spending too much money on pet nats, and trying his best to raise a one-year-old daughter and a pitbull with bad knees with his wife/co-constructor/forever editor Jess.

Be well,

Ben and the AVCX crew

avxwords.com // @avcxword