Stevenson's latest work on multilingualism in Berlin is a fascinating and enthralling account of five migrants’ personal and linguistic histories situated within a particular building in the city. Through a linguistic ethnography approach, Stevenson discusses findings from interview data collected between 2011 and 2015, and presents them in an accessible ‘sociolinguistic novella’ (149) style.

The book begins with an account of how the author recruited his participants—first, introducing an encounter with Ludmila who becomes his first informant. Ludmila is a bar owner in Neukölln, Central Berlin, from South Russia and considered a Spätaussiedler (someone from the former Soviet Union or with German ancestry, and is thus entitled to German citizenship). The author goes on to contextualise his study in Berlin, which he describes as a ‘City of Migrations’ (19), evident through ‘migration landmarks’ (26) throughout the city—places or features that mark the presence of migrants. For example, in chapter 3, he looks at multilingualism in the city, through census data and a linguistic landscape analysis of visual and aural dimensions including street and shop signs, buildings and advertisements.

The second half of the book elaborates on the biographies of the ethnographic interview participants. Other than Ludmila, Stevenson writes about Ferhat, a Kurdish migrant, Hoa, from Vietnam and finally two Polish migrants, Marek and Beata. Especially interesting to me was the author's account of Hoa, who first moved to Germany in 1955 as a student, sent by the communist government of Vietnam to study abroad. Although she returned to Vietnam after completing her studies, Hoa eventually decided to go back to Germany due to her lack of freedom to oppose the communist leadership in Vietnam. At the time of the study, she was working as a social worker, helping other migrants navigate the complexities of integrating into Berlin. Her storied background of moving to and living in different countries for different reasons made for a compelling read.

As Stevenson personally notes, he has chosen not to write a conclusion about any bigger pictures, nor offer any synthesis of the five stories. Instead, in the epilogue, he reflects on his research experience and notes his focus on the transformative nature of language and its ability to both empower or disempower.

Stevenson's modest attempt to model the linguistic texture of Berlin, focusing on a limited ethnography based on a small number of participants, provides an appealing and timely justification of multilingualism in a global city. The contents certainly describe a most relevant concept today, not only in Berlin but also in cities all around the world, as people have become more mobile than ever before. They often face inevitable and unwanted (socio)linguistic conflicts in a new place. Overall, this book is a valuable addition to the field of language and migration, exemplifying linguistic ethnography in an innovative and effective novella style. I believe Stevenson's approach is a good example of a helpful method to capture a potentially sensitive topic.