Women bore much of the burden of the Vietnam War, but their voices have long been absent from the trove of literature on the topic, author Nguyen Phan Que Mai says.
Speaking ahead of yesterday’s 45th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, Que Mai says her new novel The Mountains Sing — written in English — aims to shine a light on the stories of women who not only endured and survived conflict, but had to rebuild shattered lives time and again.
“I’ve read a lot of Vietnam War fiction in English and most of it is written in the voices of men,” the poet and writer said.
“I grew up with incredible women around me,” she said, adding that while many sons and fathers lost their lives in combat, it was women who had to deal with the heartache and the consequences.
“My childhood was full of images of women who were waiting for the return of their loved ones from the war. My village was basically empty of men and the women later had to carry on, had to raise the kids and survive,” she said.
The Mountains Sing is written from the perspective of a Vietnamese grandmother and her granddaughter. It tells the story of four generations of their family through much of the 20th century, spanning the French colonial period, the rise of communism, the war with the US, to present day.
Novels such as The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and Graham Greene’s The Quiet American have become classics, but offer few details of the female experience, while Vietnam’s most celebrated novels on the topic, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize winner The Sympathizer and Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War were written by men.
Que Mai wanted to take a fresh approach.
“I wanted to show the Vietnam War and Vietnamese history from another angle, from the angle of Vietnamese women,” she said. “I could see that women are the people who bear the burden of the war.”
She believes it is vital to help people see there is more to the nation than the war, hailing it as a place full of complexity, colors and culture.
Born in 1973, Que Mai spent most of her childhood in the south in the post-war years after her father, a teacher, was relocated from the north.
They moved to the tip of the Mekong Delta in 1979, where the land was lush and fertile, but bullet shells had to be removed to plant rice, she said.
Like many people at the time in Vietnam — which was under a US embargo — they were dirt poor and her family rarely had enough to eat.
She rose every day at 4:30am to catch shrimps in nearby rice fields, before heading to school. After class, she would sell water spinach and cigarettes on the street.
Despite reunification on April 30, 1975, division between the north and south was as tangible as ever, she said, recounting a terrifying first night in her new home.
“I was eating dinner and I heard a ‘boom’ — someone had thrown a rock at our house,” Que Mai said. “The southern people considered us invaders.”
Four decades on, many of those old wounds have yet to be healed. For those who fought in the brutal conflict with the US and for the family members left behind, there is still unresolved trauma, she said.
“I have a friend who fought in the war and he cannot sleep with a ceiling fan in the room, because he still thinks of American helicopters chasing and shooting him, and for many people the war still hasn’t ended because their loved ones haven’t returned home,” Que Mai said.
North Korea yesterday made a rare mention of dissenting votes in recent elections, although analysts dismissed it as an attempt to portray an image of a normal society rather than signaling any meaningful increase of rights in the authoritarian state. The reclusive country has one of the most highly controlled societies in the world, with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un accused of using a system of patronage and repression to retain absolute power. Reporting on the results of Sunday’s election for deputies to regional people’s assemblies, the North’s state media said that 0.09 percent and 0.13 percent voted against the selected candidates
‘SYMBOLIC ATTACK’: Ukraine said it downed 74 of the Iranian-made drones, but five people were wounded in Kyiv, as people marked Holodomor Remembrance Day Ukraine on Saturday said it had downed 74 out of 75 drones Russia launched at it overnight, in what it said was the biggest such attack since the start of the invasion in February last year. The Ukrainian army said Russia had launched a “record number” of Iranian-made Shahed drones, the majority of which targeted Kyiv, causing power cuts as temperatures dipped below freezing. The drone attack came as Ukraine marked Holodomor Remembrance Day, commemorating the 1930s starvation of millions in Ukraine under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. “The enemy launched a record number of attack drones at Ukraine. The main direction
‘SCOURGE’: About 50,000 people demonstrated in Rome after the murder of a 22-year-old university student, while others highlighted the number of femicides in their nations Thousands of people took to the streets across the world on Saturday to condemn violence against women on the international day highlighting the crime. On the UN-designated International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, protesters marched in Europe and the Americas. “The scourge of gender-based violence continues to inflict pain and injustice on too many,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement. “An estimated one in three women globally will experience physical violence, rape, or stalking at some point in their lifetimes. It’s an outrage.” In Guatemala, protesters began commemorations on Friday evening, placing candles to write out 438 —
WEATHER PROBLEM: Seoul said the launch, which comes after the North said its new spy satellite is taking images of US military facilities, was rescheduled for Saturday South Korea has delayed the planned launch of its first military spy satellite set for tomorrow, officials said, days after rival North Korea said it had put its own spy satellite into orbit for the first time. Under a contract with SpaceX, South Korea is to launch five spy satellites by 2025, and its first launch using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket had been scheduled to take place at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base in the US. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense yesterday said in a brief statement that the launch was delayed due to weather conditions. Ministry officials said the
RSS