She Weeps Each Time You're Born

She Weeps Each Time You're Born

Author: Quan Barry

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2016-02-23

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0804171300

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Radiant, lyrical, and deeply moving, this is the unforgettable story of one woman’s struggle to unearth the true history of Vietnam while also carving out a place for herself within it. Vietnam, 1972: under a full moon, on the banks of the Song Ma River, a baby girl is pulled out of her dead mother’s grave. This is Rabbit, who is born with the ability to speak with the dead. She will flee from her destroyed village with a makeshift family thrown together by war. As Rabbit channels the voices of the dead, their chorus reconstructs the turbulent history of a nation, from the days of French Indochina and the World War II rubber plantations to the chaos of postwar reunification.


The Refugees

The Refugees

Author: Viet Thanh Nguyen

Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published: 2017-02-07

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 0802189350

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“Beautiful and heartrending” fiction set in Vietnam and America from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer (Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker) In these powerful stories, written over a period of twenty years and set in both Vietnam and America, Viet Thanh Nguyen paints a vivid portrait of the experiences of people leading lives between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. This incisive collection by the National Book Award finalist and celebrated author of The Committed gives voice to the hopes and expectations of people making life-changing decisions to leave one country for another, and the rifts in identity, loyalties, romantic relationships, and family that accompany relocation. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her with a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half-sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will, the stories are a captivating testament to the dreams and hardships of migration. “Terrific.” —Chicago Tribune “An important and incisive book.” —The Washington Post “An urgent, wonderful collection.” —NPR


The Sacred Willow

The Sacred Willow

Author: Mai Elliott

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 497

ISBN-13: 019061451X

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Tied in to Ken Burns' forthcoming (2017) TV series on Vietnam, to which the author is a major contributor, the reissue of a Pulitzer finalist memoir of a Vietnamese family in the 20th century


Surviving Twice

Surviving Twice

Author: Trin Yarborough

Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.

Published: 2014-05-27

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 1612342957

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Surviving Twice is the story of five Vietnamese Amerasians born during the Vietnam War to American soldiers and Vietnamese mothers. Unfortunately, they were not among the few thousand Amerasian children who came to the United States before the war's end and grew up as Americans, speaking English and attending American schools. Instead, this group of Amerasians faced much more formidable obstacles, both in Vietnam and in their new home. Surviving Twice raises significant questions about how mixed-race children born of wars and occupations are treated and the ways in which the shifting laws, policies, social attitudes, and bureaucratic red tape of two nations affect them their entire lives.


The Best We Could Do

The Best We Could Do

Author: Thi Bui

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2017-03-07

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1613129300

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National bestseller 2017 National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Finalist ABA Indies Introduce Winter / Spring 2017 Selection Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Spring 2017 Selection ALA 2018 Notable Books Selection An intimate and poignant graphic novel portraying one family’s journey from war-torn Vietnam, from debut author Thi Bui. This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir about the search for a better future and a longing for the past. Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family’s daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves. At the heart of Bui’s story is a universal struggle: While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent—the endless sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures, and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, Bui pushes through. With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home. In what Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen calls “a book to break your heart and heal it,” The Best We Could Do brings to life Thi Bui’s journey of understanding, and provides inspiration to all of those who search for a better future while longing for a simpler past.


Buddha's Child

Buddha's Child

Author: Nguyen Cao Ky

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2013-12-24

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 1466860855

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The history of the Vietnam War has rarely been told from the Vietnamese perspective-and never by a leader of that country. In Buddha's Child, Nguyen Cao Ky reveals the remarkable story of his tumultuous tenure as Premier of South Vietnam, and offers unprecedented insight into the war's beginning, escalation, and heartbreaking end. A thirty-four year old pilot and Air Force commander, known for his fighter-pilot's moustache, flowing lavender scarf and his reputation as a ladies' man, Ky in 1965 agreed to lead South Vietnam after a series of coups had dangerously destabilized the nation. Ky's task was to unite a country riven by political, ethnic, and religious factions and undermined by corruption. With little experience in governing and none in international affairs, and while continuing to fly combat missions over Vietnam, Ky plunged into a war to save his homeland. He served as premier until 1967, continued to be active in the war after his resignation, and finally left Vietnam in 1975 during the fall of Saigon. Buddha's Child offers Ky's perspective on the crucial events and memorable images of the Vietnam War: the coup against and execution of President Diem; the self-immolation by the Buddhist monk, and the radical Buddhists' attempt to topple Ky's government; the bloody and pivotal Tet Offensive; the shooting of a Vietcong prisoner, captured in one of the war's most notorious photographs; the Paris Peace talks that sold out South Vietnam; and the last, desperate days of Saigon. In frank language, Ky discusses his own successes and failures as a leader and dramatically relates the progress of the war as it unfolded on the ground and behind the scenes-including anecdotes about Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, William Westmoreland, Henry Cabot Lodge, William Colby, Henry Kissinger, and many others. Buddha's Child is a revelatory, fascinating account of a nation at war by a most unusual man.


On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Author: Ocean Vuong

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2021-06-01

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0525562044

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A New York Times bestseller • Nominated for the National Book Award for Fiction • Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century “A lyrical work of self-discovery that’s shockingly intimate and insistently universal…Not so much briefly gorgeous as permanently stunning.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post “This is one of the best novels I’ve ever read...Ocean Vuong is a master. This book a masterpiece.”—Tommy Orange, author of There There and Wandering Stars On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard. With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years. Named a Best Book of the Year by: GQ, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Library Journal, TIME, Esquire, The Washington Post, Apple, Good Housekeeping, The New Yorker, The New York Public Library, Elle.com, The Guardian, The A.V. Club, NPR, Lithub, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, and more!


The Rebirth of Hope

The Rebirth of Hope

Author: Sau Le Hudecek

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2017-06-22

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0875656625

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Born in a demilitarized zone during the Vietnam War to a Vietnamese mother and American soldier, Sau Le arrived in the United States as a young woman with only twenty dollars in her pocket. Though bullied and abused since childhood, she nevertheless came to her new homeland armed with a commitment to build a decent life for herself, her infant son, and her traumatized mother. This is the story of how she overcame every conceivable hurdle—including significant culture shock, a language barrier, serious illness, heartbreak, and betrayal—to become a landlord, successful business owner, joyous wife and mom and a woman blessed with generous, loyal friends. She describes an arduous journey, both literal and figurative, from a place of terror and utter despair to a life she created that’s overflowing with prosperity, patriotism, and love. And ultimately, it’s the story of hope, something Sau thought she’d lost long ago in the minefields of Vietnam. In telling her story, Sau Le aims to uplift those who worry that their dreams cannot be realized. Her goal is also to remind everyone born on American soil that this is the greatest country on earth, and that anything in this land is possible for those willing to put dedication, faith, and passion to work.


Dear Da-Lê

Dear Da-Lê

Author: Anh Duong

Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre

Published: 2024-09-21

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1771624299

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In an intensely revealing memoir written for his Canadian daughter, a man breaks a lifetime of silence about the traumas of his childhood in war-torn Vietnam and his years as a refugee in revolutionary Iran. Spanning decades and generations, this heartfelt memoir began as a series of letters from a worried father. Anh Duong had witnessed terrible things as a child during the Vietnam War, and later as a refugee in Iran during the revolution of the late 1970s. But like many in the Vietnamese diaspora, he had remained silent about his experiences, believing that trauma was better left unspoken. However, when his daughter became involved in student protests, Duong felt compelled to speak about his own experience of uprisings. In precise prose, Dear Da-Lê moves along a taut narrative thread that begins with Duong’s birth in 1953 and ends with his arrival, frayed and broke, in Canada in 1980. With surprising moments of hope and tenderness amid brutal divisions, the author creates a coming-of-age story intertwined with the human costs of war and exile. Its revelations are sure to resonate not only with the generation born to refugees of the Vietnam War, but with anyone seeking to understand the lasting, often hidden torments of violent conflict and the healing that can take place in the act of telling.