The Cleaving: Vietnamese Writers in the Diaspora book cover

The Cleaving

Vietnamese Writers in the Diaspora
University of California Press, Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network

The first and only book to gather the voices and perspectives of Vietnamese diasporic authors from across the globe.

Edited by Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, Lan P. Duong, and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Cleaving brings together Vietnamese artists and writers from around the world in conversation about their craft and how their work has been shaped and received by mainstream culture and their own communities. This collection highlights how Vietnamese diasporic writers speak about having been cleaved—a condition in which they have been separated from, yet still hew to, the country that they have left behind.

Composed of eighteen dialogues among thirty-seven writers from France, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Canada, Australia, Israel, and the United States, the book expands on the many lives that Vietnamese writers inhabit. The dialogues touch on family history, legacies of colonialism and militarism, and the writers’ own artistic and literary achievements. Taken together, these conversations insist on a deeper reckoning with the conditions of displacement.

Books Lan has authored, co-edited and co-authored.

Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network, Texas Tech University Press
Gender, Culture, and Trans-Vietnamese Feminism
Temple University Press
An Anthology of Art and Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora
University of Washington Press
An Introduction to Critical Refugee Studies
University of California Press