Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, DUST CHILD

June 27, 2023

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Episode Description

Zibby speaks to award-winning author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai about Dust Child, a powerful and hauntingly beautiful saga about two Vietnamese sisters, an American veteran, and an Amerasian man whose lives intersect in surprising ways, set during and after the war in Vietnam. Nguyễn reveals how her experience working with veterans, reuniting war-separated families, and bringing former enemies together (in addition to her own memories of the war) inspired this novel. She also describes the lives of abandoned Amerasian children in Vietnam (the children of the dust) and explains how she used poetry, music, nature, and joy to create a book that is as much about trauma as it is about healing.


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