Selected Literature From Viet Nam
The following list offers compelling novels, short stories,
and poetry by Vietnamese, American and Vietnamese-Americans. For useful and
exciting individual stories and poems for high school and college classes,
contact erbrill69@gmail.com
The Sorrow of War -
Bao Ninh. A loving Hanoi youth comes of age in war’s
agonies.
Past Continuous –
Nguyen Khai. Intricacies of North Vietnamese strategies through multiple views:
a Catholic priest, a secret agent, a female battlion commander.
Against The Flood
– Ma Van Khang. Controversial novel of war and sexual politics.
Time Far Past
– Le Luu. Rare in-depth view of a caring communist’s return from war.
She Weeps Each Time
You’re Born - Quan Barry. A girl speaks with the dead who help her
reconstruct routs of French and American armies towards a liberated Vietnam.
The Zenith – Duong
Thuy Huong . Vietnam’s most controversial author poignantly shows the last days
of Ho Chi Minh in a powerhouse, tumultuous story. Other fine works include Paradise of The Blind, No Man’s Land, Novel
Without A Name, Memories of Spring, and Beyond
Illusion. A gripping and fearless writer.
The Stars, The Earth,
The River- Le Minh Khue. A young
bomb detonator finds love.
The Cemetery At Chua
Village and Other Stories - Doan Le.
A leading feminist hilariously satires bureaucracy, including botched
burials of generals and peasants.
The General Retires
and Other Stories. Nguyen Huy Thiep. Postwar difficulties.
An Insignificant
Family - Da Ngan. Complex story of war’s affect on families.
The Reeducation of Cherry Truong –Aimee Pham. A Vietnamese-American
woman goes to Vietnam to seek and discover decades-old family secrets.
Behind The Red Mist
– Ho Anh Thai. One of Vietnam’s leading writers (He also wrote the novel Woman
On The Island).
Distant Road -
Nguyen Duy. A leading war and post-war poet.
The Secret of Hoa Sen –
Nguyen Pham Que Mai. Vistas of healing, wounds to lotus.
The Time Tree -
Huu Thinh. Beautiful poems blending everyday lives and legends.
Women Carrying River Water- Nguyen Quan Thieu. Celebrating Vietnam’s women.
Selected American
Literature of The Viet Nam War
The Alleys of Eden
– Robert Olen Butler. A soldier deserts with his Vietnamese lover.
Good Scent From An
Enemy Mountain . Robert Olen
Butler. Pulitzer Prize winner.
The Gods Go Begging.
Alfredo Vea. Double San Francisco murders, including a Vietnamese woman, force
an attorney to revisit a horrific siege on a hill in Vietnam.
Indian Country-
Phil Caputo. A wife watched her PTSD husband wire his front yard.
Paco’s Story -
Larry Heineman. A Latino private barely survives a hellish battle.
De Mojo Blues-
A.R. Flowers. Three black soldiers are dishonorably discharged.
The People Of The
Whale- Linda Hogan. An Indian war hero returns his medals.
The Things We Do To
Make It Home- Beverly Gologorsky. War lives of vets’ wives.
In Country –
Bobbie Ann Mason. A girl keeps a lookout on her haunted uncle.
In The Lake Of The
Woods- Tim Obrien- Secret war horros quash a rising young politician’s
career. (Also, The Things They Carried, sterling short stories).
Machine Dreams –
Jayne Anne Phillilps. A sister tracks her brother at war.
Fire and Rain -
Oswaldo Rivera. Racial tensions among Vietnam GIs explode.
Bloods- Walter
Terry. These oral histories read like an intense suspense novel.
The Quiet American – Graham Greene. Too quiet? 1955 pub.
date tells us what?
The Moon Reflected
– Doug Anderson. Outstanding poems of the war, its aftermath.
Dien Cai Dau-
Yusef Koumanyakaa. Dynamic trenchant
poems.
Human Shrapnel
–Bill Shields – Astonishingly intense poems’ screaming jumps out.(
Playing Basketball
With the Viet Cong- Kevin Bowen. One of the best titles EVER.
Obscenities-
Michael Casey. Pithy, blunt. Yale Younger Poets Prize 1971. Deserved
Song of Napalm
–Bruce Weigl. Searing poems of the war.
A lifelong civil
rights and antiwar writer and activist, Ernie Brill is the author of I Looked Over Jordan And Other Stories He has pioneered global literature
curriculum.
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