Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

#ReadAroundTheWorld. #Vietnam

This is a dual timeline historical fiction story set in Northern Vietnam by Vietnamese author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai. It is a broad sweeping saga following the joys and sorrows of the Trần family from the 1930s to 1980s. Diệu Lan, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the 1953–1956 Land Reform in which the communist Việt Minh government incited the peasants to revolt against the landowners and strip them of their possessions. Diệu Lan survives the French occupation, the Japanese invasion of 1945, the Great Hunger, the Land Reform and the First Indochina war (1946–1954) between the Việt Minh and the French. Her granddaughter, Hương, faces heartache as her parents and uncles go off to fight in the Việt Nam War, none of them returning untouched by the tragedy.

This is an important, insightful book which creates a sense of Vietnam, its people, culture and history. My only complaint, which other readers have also expressed, was that the two narrator voices of Hương and her grandmother were hard to distinguish. I would like to read more of this author’s works. 4.5 stars… (mais)

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher of Workman Publishing, and the author Nguyen Phan Que Mai. While it is exciting to read from a local Vietnamese author, I don't exactly like the author's politics. I simply don't agree with the stance of being anti-war. Is this applied to other wars such as the WW's, the civil war, or the Haitian revolution? What does advocating for peace mean while imperialism/colonialism and the everyday violence of those systems exist? I also could have done without the subplot of the American soldier. I was excited to learn more about Amerasians as I was hoping the novel would reveal an insight into their lives, but I was disappointed to find it lacking. I'm beyond disappointed and I wish I could write more, but I'm tired.… (mais)

Thanks to Chris Gordon, community engagement and program manager at Readings Bookstore, this is the second novel I've come across by a Vietnamese author who actually lives in Vietnam. During the pandemic, Chris coordinated numerous author events, and in October 2020 I blogged target="_top">here, about Nguyen Phan Que Mai in conversation with Canadian author Natalie Jenner and the launch of her 2020 debut novel The Mountains Sing, which I subsequently reviewed here. It was a rewarding book, revealing aspects of Vietnamese history that are little-known in the West, and depicting the impact of the war on women and their families. Dust Child (2023) is Que Mai's second novel, about the children of American servicemen searching for their parents.

I have been to Vietnam and seen for myself the astonishing economic progress they have made despite the vindictive three-decade American embargo on trade which made Vietnam one of the poorest nations on earth. So I was mildly disappointed that this novel goes out of its way to depict corruption and fraud, with Vietnamese people preying on each other. There is corruption, as we know (and I've witnessed it myself in a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) city). But the plot revolves around sisters Trang and Quynh manipulated into working as bar girls (i.e. prostitutes) because their parents are in massive debt to swindling money-lenders, and there is an orphaned Amerasian called Phong preyed upon by a Vietnamese family pressuring him into 'adoption' so that they can migrate to the US under his entitlement. Because his appearance makes it obvious that he has an African-American father, Vietnamese women also wanting to migrate to the US claim to be his mother, for whom he has yearned all his life. The emotional roller-coaster of hopes dashed time and again is a cruel reminder that the Vietnamese themselves discriminate against the children of US servicemen, hence the term 'children of the dust'.

In a somewhat idealised portrait of a rueful US serviceman, Dan comes 'on holiday' to Vietnam with his wife Linda, who, despite his persisting PTSD, has been loyal to him since before his war service. Naïvely, Dan believes that he can track down his lover 'Kim' without Linda finding out about their relationship and the pregnancy which he refused to acknowledge. Wracked with guilt, Dan makes a lot of belated apologies and acknowledges that he was cruel and irresponsible, but he also makes the excuse that the war was very difficult for very young men... who turned to Vietnamese girls for comfort. He too is preyed upon by a tour guide (with other murky enterprises on the side) who is eventually unmasked to reveal his hostility towards the GIs returning to Vietnam to exorcise their demons.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/03/21/dust-child-2023-by-nguyen-phan-que-mai/… (mais)