Essays

There is a Vietnamese diaspora in America. The stories are there. And let me tell you, Vietnamese people have got some pretty compelling stories about the war. God forbid, what if stories about Vietnam focused on the people and not the war?

When I was eleven years old I had a dream that my house was burning down. And I wouldn’t call it a dream, really—it was more like a fantasy. When I woke up the blanket was pulled over my eyes. No, this is no joke.

Growing up, our family would never go away on holidays. Dinner in the food court was one thing that made me feel like our family did things together. It was a treat we could look forward to.

With ears comfortable to the sounds of the hums of quê hương, or quê nhà, my parents listened to an evoked past that reverberated well into the present. Yet these very sounds, as beautiful and tragically poignant as they are, sometimes suffocated me at night in our familiar home.

An excerpt of Nam Le's book, "On David Malouf: Writers on Writers." Le's latest book is part of a series where writers reflect on and respond to the legacy of noteworthy Australian authors who have preceded them.

"Given the current debates about representation in literature, I find myself reflecting on how I have always preferred books to be windows rather than mirrors. I was a voracious reader from a young age but growing up I didn’t particularly yearn for stories about what it meant to be Vietnamese – especially in Australia – because I was already drowning in the experience of it."