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Many readers addressed their fan letters not to the author, Betty Smith, but to her main character, Francie Nolan, a dirt-poor tenement child with big dreams.—Perri Klass, The New Yorker, 30 Dec. 2024 Shot in a single take, Night Shift tells the story of a desperate and dirt-poor Khun (played by Chatchai), who decides to pack things up to have a better life in the city.—Sara Merican, Deadline, 31 Oct. 2024 My mom grew up with very-not-amicably divorced parents, one of whom (her father) was well-off and the other (her mother, the primary parent) was dirt-poor.—R29 Team, refinery29.com, 12 Aug. 2024 Like their grandmother, the village girl from Italy’s dirt-poor south who morphed into a sophisticated Parisian muse, the siblings’ identities are hard to pin down.—Mark Ellwood, Robb Report, 3 Aug. 2024 However, through decades of hard work, focus and persistence, the dirt-poor farm laborer became a space traveler.—Contributing Writer, Orange County Register, 23 Apr. 2024 When Nitish Kumar became chief minister of the dirt-poor Indian state of Bihar in 2005, kidnapping was said to be the leading industry in the capital city of Patna.—Ruchir Sharma, Foreign Affairs, 12 Aug. 2013
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