AU-CO TRAN WINS IN OUR SUBSCRIBER DRIVE! diaCRITICS wants to add 100 new subscribers! The 25th, 50th, 75th, and 100th subscribers (and those who referred them) get their pick of prizes. Au-Co Tran is our 100th subscriber and has chosen Where Are You From?: An Anthology of Asian American Writing (Volume 1) as her prize. If you enjoy reading our posts as much as these winners do, then we encourage you to subscribe! And if you want to refer people and are on networked blogs, you can invite all your friends on Facebook to join via networked blogs! We are well on our way to our 50th new subscriber.
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A little more information about Au-co Tran comes below.
Where are you from?
I’m from San Jose, California.
Tell us something else about yourself.
I am going to start my MFA program in Creative Writing at San Jose State University this fall. I read like a fiend. I love cats. And I have a strange obsession with relish (the condiment) and crayons (Crayola).
Do you have a favorite Vietnamese or Vietnamese diasporic work of art? If so, tell us about it.
I’ve only recently renewed my interest in reading Vietnamese diasporic literature. The first book I picked up was Andrew Lam’s collection of short stories, Birds of Paradise Lost. I thought I’d read as much of his work as I can before he teaches a semester at my school next spring. I’ve read a few of his stories before and had really liked them. To me, his depiction of the Vietnamese diaspora broke away from the usual mold of storytelling that talked about people like my parents. He wrote about the same ideas, like a sense of loss, and longing for a place to call home. But I was able to connect so much better. To be honest, when I finished his book, I felt drained and really horrified at the atrocities my parents’ generation went through. His stories gave me a better understanding of the period immediately following the war and the struggles and guilt of the people who fled.
Did someone refer you to subscribe to diacritics?
Lastly, I found diacritics on google when I was searching for Vietnamese diasporic literature.
Where are you from?: An Anthology of Asian American Writing (volume 1) questions the common prejudice often expressed by the majority culture that Asian Americans are alien or foreign to the USA. In the words of Lawson Inada, we want to tell people where we come from — where we’re really from.
It was honored as one of five Finalists for the “Best Self-Published Book of 2012″ award by Shelf Unbound magazine. It was also recommended as one of Greater Boston’s Best Book Picks of 2012.
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