Historical fiction books from Vietnam
Recommended historical fiction books (14)
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you are into historical fiction here are some historical fiction books from Vietnam for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.
1.
Banyan Moon : A Novel by Thao Thai EN
Description:
A sweeping, evocative debut novel following three generations of Vietnamese American women reeling from the death of their matriarch, revealing the family's inherited burdens, buried secrets, and unlikely love stories. When Ann Tran gets the call that her fiercely beloved grandmother, Minh, has passed away, her life is already at a crossroads. In the years since she's last seen Minh, Ann has built a seemingly perfect life--a beautiful lake house, a charming professor boyfriend, and invites to elegant parties that bubble over with champagne and good taste--but it all crumbles with one positive ... continue
2.
Butterfly Yellow by Thanhhà Lai EN
Description:
Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction! Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, Ibi Zoboi, and Erika L. Sanchez, this gorgeously written and deeply moving own voices novel is the YA debut from the award-winning author of Inside Out & Back Again. 4 starred reviews! In the final days of the Việt Nam War, Hằng takes her little brother, Linh, to the airport, determined to find a way to safety in America. In a split second, Linh is ripped from her arms--and Hằng is left behind in the war-torn country. Six years later, Hằng has made the brutal journey from Việt Nam and is now in Texa... continue
3.
Dust Child by Que Mai Phan Nguyen EN
Description:
From the internationally bestselling author of The Mountains Sing, a propulsive and moving tale of wartime love, family, and loss, as an American GI, two Vietnamese bargirls, and an Amerasian man are forced to make decisions during and after the Việt Nam War that will reverberate throughout each other’s lives.
4.
Description:
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE Kim Thúy's Em is a virtuosic novel of profound power and sensitivity, and an enduring affirmation of the greatest act of resistance: love. In the midst of war, an ordinary miracle: an abandoned baby tenderly cared for by a young boy living on the streets of Saigon. The boy is Louis, the child of a long-gone American soldier. Louis calls the baby em Hồng, em meaning "little sister," or "beloved." Even though her cradle is nothing more than a cardboard box, em Hồng's life holds every possibility. Through the linked destinies of a family of charact... continue
5.
Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai EN
Description:
No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama. For all the ten years of her life, HÀ has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by . . . and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. HÀ and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, HÀ discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape . . . and the... continue
6.
Moderato Cantabile by Marguerite Duras EN
Description:
A distressed young man murders the woman he loves in a café, watched by a large crowd. Fascinated by the crime she has witnessed, Anne Desbaresdes returns several times to the scene, forming a relationship with a man who also saw the murder, and drinking through the afternoon with him as he patiently answers her eager questions. Slowly, they find themselves being taken over by forces which threaten their own stability. Moderato Cantabile is a carefully woven tapestry of emotion, in which the characters' inner lives are reflected by the story's spaces and landscapes.
7.
Monkey Bridge : A Novel by Lan Cao EN
Description:
Hailed by critics and writers as powerful, important fiction, Monkey Bridge charts the unmapped territory of the Vietnamese American experience in the aftermath of war. Like navigating a monkey bridge—a bridge, built of spindly bamboo, used by peasants for centuries—the narrative traverses perilously between worlds past and present, East and West, in telling two interlocking stories: one, the Vietnamese version of the classic immigrant experience in America, told by a young girl; and the second, a dark tale of betrayal, political intrigue, family secrets, and revenge—her mother's tale. The hau... continue
8.
O amante by Marguerite Duras PT
Description:
Prêmio Goncourt em 1984, com mais de 2 milhões e meio de exemplares vendidos apenas na França, Romance autobiográfico que acompanha a tumultuada história de amor entre uma jovem francesa e um rico comerciante chinês na Indochina pré-guerra. Com uma prosa intimista e certeira, Duras evoca a vida nas margens de Saigon nos últimos dias do império colonial da França e relembra não só sua experiência, mas também os relacionamentos que separaram sua família e que, prematuramente, gravaram em seu rosto as marcas implacáveis da maturidade.
9.
Paradise of the Blind : A Novel by Thu Huong Duong EN
Description:
Paradise of the Blind is an exquisite portrait of three Vietnamese women struggling to survive in a society where subservience to men is expected and Communist corruption crushes every dream. Through the eyes of Hang, a young woman in her twenties who has grown up amidst the slums and intermittent beauty of Hanoi, we come to know the tragedy of her family as land reform rips apart their village. When her uncle Chinh‘s political loyalties replace family devotion, Hang is torn between her mother‘s appalling self–sacrifice and the bitterness of her aunt who can avenge but not forgive. Only by fre... continue
10.
The Crystal Messenger by Thị Hoài Phạm EN
Description:
This award winning book has been described as the 'renaissance of Vietnamese literature'. Written by a young woman in her twenties at the end of an era when Vietnam closed itself off from the world, it is widely regarded as one of the most important works of fiction ever to come out of that country. Ostensibly, The Crystal Messenger is a magical and moving story of two sisters' journeys to emotional and sexual maturity. But it is also a powerful allegory about the fate of North and South Vietnam, the struggle with reunification after the war, and the effect of consumerism and westernisation on... continue