My Viet : Vietnamese American literature in English, 1962-present / edited by Michele Janette.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Janette, Michele, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--Vietnamese American authors.

American literature.

American literature--20th century.

American literature--21st century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxvii, 250 pages.)

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, [2011]

Summary:

Twentieth-century America reduced Vietnam to "'Nam": the surreal site of a military nightmare. The early twenty-first century has seen the revision of this image to recognize the people and culture of Vietnam itself. Vietnamese Americans, both immigrants and the American children of immigrants, have participated in changing this perception, consistently presenting their side of the story in memoirs published since the 1960s.My Vietis the first anthology to provide a comprehensive overview of these memoirs and the historical picture they offer and to include Vietnamese writing that goes beyond memoir, revealing a new generation of Vietnamese American poetry, fiction, and drama.The narratives in Part 1, Tales of Witness, treat the major events of the Vietnamese diasapora: Vietnam's resistance to French colonization, the "Vietnam War," post-war Vietnamese life, immigration to and life in America, and reconnections with contemporary Vietnam. Part 2, Tales of Imagination, moves beyond the master narratives of war and immigration to survey exciting innovations in the work of Vietnamese American writers. The texts demonstrate the full flowering of Vietnamese American literature in English and are among the best contemporary writings of any category.My Vietpresents a rich, varied, and provocative collection of literary work that explores Vietnam from many Vietnamese points of view, sees America through a specifically Vietnamese American lens, and broadens the scope of Vietnamese American literature to its fullest extent.-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

A Note on Language

Part One: Tales of Witness

Fallen Leaves

Shallow Graves

Twenty Years and Twenty Days

A Thousand Tears Falling

A Vietcong Memoir

Electioneering: Vietnamese Style

No Passenger on the River

Our Endless War: Inside Vietnam

In the Jaws of History

When Heaven and Earth Changed Places

The Sacred Willow

At Home in America

South Wind Changing

The Unwanted

The Stories They Carried

Catfish and Mandala

Part Two: Tales of Imagination

Beyond the East Wind

The Little Weaver of Thai-Yen Village

The Land I Lost

Miles from Home

Monkey Bridge

placing the accents

Georgia Red Dirt

Song of the Cicadas

In the Mynah Birds Own Words

The Book of Salt

the gangster we are all looking for

All Around What Empties Out

Visitors

Breaking the Map

Living Dead in Denmark

It Was His Story

Permissions

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed November 25, 2013).

ISBN:

9780824860189 (electronic book)

OCLC:

794925354