 | Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War Subjects: Vietnam War 1961–1975 -- Social aspects; Vietnam War 1961–1975 -- Art and the war; Memory -- Sociological aspects; War and society; Art and war; Identity (Psychology) in art; Vietnam-born, American-raised Nguyen (The Sympathizer), an associate professor of English and American Studies at the University of Southern California, sifts through the many guises of memory and identity in this eloquent, scholarly narrative of the Vietnam War's psychological impact on combatants and civilians. The Vietnamese who fled the battlefields have little choice but to be known by the carnage that brought them to the U.S. They grapple with their own painful memories, which shadow them or get pushed aside, while their descendants try to cope with elders refusing to share their recollections. Nguyen peruses death and destruction from multiple vantage points, including the killing caves where Vietnamese civilians were annihilated by American bombers and the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. But this is primarily a work that comes to grips with memory and identity through the arts. Where literature and film have long been dominated by American works, Nguyen brilliantly introduces a pantheon of artists, including directors Dang Nhat Minh and Bui Thac Chuyen, and writers Le Ly Hayslip and Monique Truong. This is a difficult but rewarding read; Nguyen succeeds in delivering a potent critique of the war and revealing what the memories of living have meant for the identities of the next generation. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. Viet Thanh Nguyen was born in Ban Me Thuot, Viet Nam. In 1975, he came to the United States as a refugee with his family. He received degrees in English and ethnic studies from the University of California Berkeley. After receiving a Ph.D. in English from Berkeley, he began teaching at the University of Southern California and has been there ever since. He is an associate professor of English and American studies and ethnicity. He is the author of Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America and Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War. The novel The Sympathizer won the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction, the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in Fiction, and the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. His latsest novel is The Refugees. He co-edited Transpacific Studies: Framing an Emerging Field with Janet Hoskins. (Bowker Author Biography) |
