The very last of the books one
of my well-read colleagues gave me before changing jobs. Honestly, I hadn’t
heard of Nguyen until then (and he’s a Pulitzer winner, which goes to show how
much I know about literature probably!) – my bad…
I’m still not the biggest fan
of short stories, but this book is one of the exceptions. What I particularly liked
is that it mostly talks about South Vietnamese who were never happy with the
actions of Ho Chi Minh, Giap and the Viet Cong.
Obviously, some of the stories
are better than others. The meeting of the two half-sisters separated by
Oceans, continents and culture is a bit bland, but the story of the old
demented professor who confuses his wife and his past lover is pure gold, as is
the opening one about the refugee and the gay couple in San Francisco.
At this point, too bad I
missed Nguyen’s talk at Shakespeare and Co when I was in Paris last week!
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