Originally from Việt Nam, Lan is a Vietnamese American writer whose scholarship and poetry revolve around Việt Nam and all that follows in the wake of war. She was inspired to write by her sister, chị Hương, pictured above when she was a young girl, who survived a brutal war and family life. Here, the girl in the picture looks back, which mirrors this website’s look back at Lan’s writing and thinking life since coming to the US as a refugee with her family.