To Save and to Destroy Quotes

“Into this tragicomic conundrum, the writers who are other must nevertheless fall and rise, fall and fail again, again and again, as they confront, avoid, exploit, or elevate their own otherness, both the difference projected onto them and the alterity already entwined inside. This otherness and its history demands grief, but the challenge of the writer as an other is to expand that grief, to make it ever more capacious, rather than reduce it to a singular sorrow. Capacious grief acknowledges that the trauma of the other is neither singular nor unique, that there are others out there with whom we can share the burden. Perhaps only by expanding our grief might we be able to leave our trauma behind. And in sharing our burden—of writing, of representation, of otherness—we might transform that burden into a gift.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other

“Ma has been silenced, but her voice will remain with me. Her mouth is open and I cannot close it.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other

“Perhaps only by expanding our grief might we be able to leave our trauma behind. And in sharing our burden—of writing, of representation, of otherness—we might transform that burden into a gift.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other