Margarita
asked
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
The Refugees is a stunning collection of stories. Thank you! Question: The family in the first story has been visited by a ghost. How do ghosts figure in Vietnamese American culture? I am Hispanic and was once told by my grandmother that if I was ever visited by a dead relative, that I shouldn't be scared, and I believe I was visited once by my grandmother shortly after her death. That story really resonated.
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Ghosts are very important. Most Vietnamese believe that the dead need to be worshiped at an ancestral shrine in the home, and that the graves of the dead need to be tended regularly, all to appease their souls. Those who die badly--violently, unnaturally, or away from home--become "wandering souls." Ghosts can be both benevolent and malevolent. Visits by the dead soon after death are often not supposed to bee frightening, as you say. The dead come to say goodbye.
More Answered Questions
Lg
asked
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
I am deeply amazed by this book, while only on page 131. Coincidentally, last night I heard Allan Johnson speak on race and the concept of systemic perpetuations of power over/exclusion of "the other," including the example of films that diminish the characters of "non-whites" - so precisely depicted in your interchange between the narrator and the film director. Are you aware of Johnson's writings?
Robin
asked
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
I'm still working my way through The Sympathizer and I'm enjoying it thoroughly, but it's the message that the book is conveying (or that I think it is) which is really hitting home. My question is; did you write this knowing that societies issues of representation and acceptance are such important talking points at the moment? Was this your way of using past events to illustrate current struggles? Or am I way off?
Autumn
asked
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Wanted to say that I have used your book "Nothing ever dies" quite often in both of my thesis dealing with Gestational trauma of Vietnamese refugees. One of them specifically for Thi Bui's "The Best We Could Do". I was wondering if you would ever be interested in writing some more theory on subjects of mental health?
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