Fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War, literary voices of the Vietnamese-American diaspora as well as Vietnam-based authors speak to the experience of those who left and those who stayed in THE COLORS OF APRIL, a collection of new short fiction curated by award-winning translators and editors Quan Manh Ha and Cab Tran.
For much of the twentieth century, Vietnam played an outsized role on the global stage, charting the destinies of superpowers and reshaping the world's politics. Now fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War comes an anthology of fiction that finally speaks to the global Vietnamese experience: voices of both those who left and those who stayed, what was gained and lost in the half century since, and-for the generations that followed-what it means to be Vietnamese.
More than two dozen distinct literary voices are featured in this collection, including Viet Thanh Nguyen (Pulitzer Prize winner, The Sympathizer), Andrew Lam (PEN/Beyond Margins Award winner, Perfume Dreams), Barbara Tran (Lannan Foundation Award winner, In the Mynah Bird's Own Words), Vu Tran (Whiting Award winner, Dragonfish) and many more.
The stories are as diverse in style, tone, and subject matter as the ancestral lands of the Vietnamese people. From the rubble of the Ancient Citadel in Qung Tr to the makeshift orphanages outside Si Gn, from Palo Alto to a tony Lincoln Park apartment in Chicago, the narratives straddle continents and generations, the political as well as the personal. But what they share is much greater than their differences. They speak to a common language, to a culture steeped in history and myth and storytelling that vividly captures the enduring spirit of the Vietnamese people.
Editor Quan Manh Ha is Professor of English at the University of Montana and the co-translator of Other Moons: Vietnamese Short Stories of the American War and Its Aftermath, among other titles. Co-editor Cab Tran holds an MFA from University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Vagabond: Bulgaria's English Monthly, Black Warrior Review, The Iconoclast, and elsewhere. He teaches fiction for Gotham Writers Workshop. In 2023, Ha and Tran co-translated and co-edited Bo Ninh's H Ni at Midnight.
Complete list of contributors in alphabetical order: BO Thng, Thuy DINH, Th Diu Ngc, Anvi HONG, HONG Phng Mai, LI Vn Long, Andrew LAM, L Phng Anh, L V Trng Giang, LU V Ln, Vi Khi NAO, NG Th Vinh, Annhien NGUYEN, NGUYN Minh Chuyen, NGUYN Huy Cng, NGUYN Th Kim Ha, NGUYN M N, Phng NGUYN, NGUYN Thu Trn, NGUYN c Tng, Viet Thanh NGUYEN, Kevin D. PHAM, Tuan PHAN, Gin TO, Barbara TRAN, Elizabeth TRAN, TRN Th T Ngc, Vu TRAN, VN Xng, Christina VO, V Cao Phan, and VNG Tm
