I am marking the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War in 1975 with an irregular series that reflects on the war’s end and its aftermath. This third second post is about Phan Thúy Hà’s Don’t Mention My Name, which serves as a foil to Phan Nhật Nam’s Stories Along the Road. Phan Thúy Ha’s Don’t […]
I am marking the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War in 1975 with an irregular series that reflects on the war’s end and its aftermath. This third second post is about Phan Thúy Hà’s Don’t Mention My Name, which serves as a foil to Phan Nhật Nam’s Stories Along the Road. Phan Thúy Ha’s Don’t
I am marking the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War in 1975 with an irregular series that reflects on the war’s end and its aftermath. This is my second post, and it builds on my first one about Phan Nhật Nam’s Stories Along the Road, a book that reflects the long arc of recent Vietnamese
Today is the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War on April 30, 1975. I wanted to mark the occasion with an irregular series that reflect on the war’s end and its aftermath. My very first post in the series is about Phan Nhật Nam’s Stories Along the Road, a book that reflects
Nguyễn Thanh Trịnh’s What If We Were in Love (Ví dụ ta yêu nhau, 1974) is a clever frame narrative about romantic love set in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam). The book starts with a letter from an unnamed young man urging his love interest, Nhỏ, to imagine that they are in
Nguyễn Mộng Giác’s One-Way Street (Đường một chiều, 1974) is an absolute page-turner. Set in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam), the novel starts with the shocking murder of Thúy while her husband Major Lộc is away fighting in the Central Highlands as part of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. There’s
Nhã Ca’s At Night I Hear the Cannons (Đêm nghe tiếng đại bác, 1966) poignantly captures the moment when the Vietnam War began encroaching on civilian life in Saigon. Set in the mid-1960s, the novel centers on a northern Vietnamese family of modest means who emigrated to Saigon when the country was divided a decade
Bình Nguyên Lộc’s Thoroughfare (Đò dọc, 1959) is a charming novel about migration and dislocation in southern Vietnam in the mid-1950s. Nam Thành and his wife are originally from a village in Bạc Liêu province in the Mekong delta, but they flee with their daughters to Saigon during the early years of the Resistance War
FUN READS: MIGRATION AND DISLOCATION IN BÌNH NGUYÊN LỘC’S THOROUGHFARE (ĐÒ DỌC) Read More »
When was the last time I read a Vietnamese book for fun? I’m sad to say I can’t remember. Probably years ago. I’ve written elsewhere about the challenges of teaching and learning Vietnamese as a heritage language in the diaspora. I grew up in the US in the 80s and 90s and learned Vietnamese from
FUN READS: AN INTRODUCTION Read More »