Staff Picks
#BroaderBookshelf 2023 - Books Written by Vietnamese Authors
- Ariel H.
- Saturday, January 28, 2023
Collection
Fulfill the "Read a book written by an author of Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese descent" prompt with these titles.
This list is part of the #BroaderBookshelf 2023 reading challenge. Find more lists here.
The Sorrow of War
A Novel of North Vietnam
Published in 1996
Bao Ninh, a former North Vietnamese soldier, provides a strikingly honest look at how the Vietnam War forever changed his life, his country, and the people who live there. Originally published against government wishes in Vietnam because of its nonheroic, non-ideological tone, The Sorrow of War has won worldwide acclaim and become an international bestseller Annotation. The first novel of the Vietnam War written from the point of view of the North Vietnamese, The Sorrow of War has been hailed by critics not only as the best novel to emerge from the Vietnam experience, but as one of the greatest war novels of the century.
She Weeps Each Time You're Born
Published in 2014
A young girl born under mysterious circumstances a few years before the reunification of Vietnam possesses the otherworldly ability to hear the voices of the dead.
The Best We Could Do
An Illustrated Memoir
Published in 2017
The author describes her experiences as a young Vietnamese immigrant, highlighting her family's move from their war-torn home to the United States in graphic novel format.
The Lotus and the Storm
A Novel
Published in 2014
"An epic tale of love, loyalty, and war from the acclaimed author of Monkey Bridge Half a century after it began, the Vietnam War still has a hold on our national psyche. Lan Cao's now-classic debut, Monkey Bridge, won her wide renown for "connecting . . . the opposite realities of Vietnam and America" (Isabel Allende). In her triumphant new novel, Cao transports readers back to the war, illuminating events central to twentieth-century history through the lives of one Vietnamese American family. Minh is a former South Vietnamese commander of the airborne brigade who left his homeland with his daughter, Mai. During the war, their lives became entwined with those of two Americans: James, a soldier, and Cliff, a military adviser. Forty years later, Minh and his daughter Mai live in a close-knit Vietnamese immigrant community in suburban Virginia. As Mai discovers a series of devastating truths about what really happened to her family during those years, Minh reflects upon his life and the story of love and betrayal that has remained locked in his heart since the fall of Saigon"-- Provided by publisher.
After Disasters
Published in 2016
Recounts the experiences of four rescue workers who put their lives at risk to save others after a life-shattering earthquake in India.
The Lover
Published in 1997
Set in the prewar Indochina of Marguerite Duras's childhood, this is the haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her Chinese lover. In spare yet luminous prose, Duras evokes life on the margins of Saigon in the waning days of France's colonial empire, and its representation in the passionate relationship between two unforgettable outcasts.
The Kiss Quotient
Published in 2018
"This is such a fun read and it's also quite original and sexy and sensitive."?Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author "Hoang's writing bursts from the page."?Buzzfeed A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick. Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases?a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old. It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice?with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan?from foreplay to more-than-missionary position... Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic...
The Bride Test
Published in 2019
"Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but he doesn't experience big, important emotions like love and grief. Rather than believing he processes emotions differently due to being autistic, he concludes that he's defective and decides to avoid romantic relationships. So his mother, driven to desperation, takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect mail-order bride. As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity to marry an American arises, she leaps at it, thinking that it could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn't go as planned. Esme's lessons in love seem to be working...but only on herself. She's hopelessly smitten with a man who believes he can never return her affection. Esme must convince Khai that there is more than one way to love. And Khai must figure out the inner workings of his heart before Esme goes home and is an ocean away"-- Provided by publisher.
The Frangipani Hotel
Stories
Published in 2014
A collection of linked short stories about ghosts and hauntings in modern Vietnam and in the Vietnamese-American community. Some are inspired by old Vietnamese legends but reimagined in the post-1975 world--Provided by publisher.
A Phở Love Story
Published in 2021
High school seniors Bảo and Linh, whose feuding families own competing Vietnamese restaurants, conceal their budding romance, as well as Linh's desire to become an artist.
The Mountains Sing
A Novel
Published in 2020
"The multigenerational tale of the Trà̂n family, set against the backdrop of the Vit Nam War. Trà̂n Diu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Ni, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the H Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that will tear not just her beloved country but her family apart"-- Provided by publisher.
The Committed
Published in 2021
"The astonishing sequel to The Sympathizer, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, The Committed follows the "man of two minds" as he comes to Paris as a refugee. There he and his blood brother Bon try to escape their pasts and prepare for their futures by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. No longer in physical danger, but still inwardly tortured by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into a dominant culture, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals and politicians who frequent dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese "aunt," he finds not just stimulation for his mind but also customers for his merchandise-but the new life he is making has dangers he has not foreseen. Both literary thriller and brilliant novel of ideas, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen's position inthe firmament of American letters"-- Provided by publisher.
Nothing Ever Dies
Vietnam and the Memory of War
Published in 2016
"All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. Exploring how this troubled memory works in Vietnam, the United States, Laos, Cambodia, and South Korea, the book deals specifically with the Vietnam War and also war in general. He reveals how war is a part of our identity, as individuals and as citizens of nations armed to the teeth. Venturing through literature, film, monuments, memorials, museums, and landscapes of the Vietnam War, he argues that an alternative to nationalism and war exists in art, created by artists who adhere to no nation but the imagination."--Provided by publisher.
Bitter in the Mouth
A Novel
Published in 2010
When a personal tragedy compels a young woman to return to Boiling Springs, North Carolina, she gets to know a mother she never knew and uncovers a startling story of a life, a family.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
A Novel
Published in 2019
"Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. 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"-- Provided by publisher.