The Cleaving by Isabelle Pelaud, Lan Duong, Viet Thanh Nguyen - Paper

Reviews

"It has been 50 years since the war ended in Vietnam, yet for decades afterward Vietnamese writers have rarely been published in the English language. The Cleaving is remarkable in making amends, featuring three dozen writers, poets, and artists in the Vietnamese diaspora in paired dialogues. The result is an affecting kaleidoscope of perspectives and feelings that tears away the Western image of the country."
— Air Mail

"The Cleaving brings together Vietnamese artists and writers from around the world in conversation about their craft."
— LAist

"At once ‘cleaved’ from the nation of origin while still inextricably linked to it, these conversations, alongside commentary by editors Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, Lan P. Duong, and Viet Thanh Nguyen, navigate the liminal space between Vi?t Nam and places of resettlement/displacement, the in-between of identity, experience, creativity, and sociopolitical critique."
— MELUS

"This collection is but the beginning of an effort to formally identify a Vietnamese diasporic literature, and an invitation for more input to shape this landscape."
— Asian Review of Books

"Every dialogue in this anthology shares ache and joy, emotional and intellectual poignancy, a tender agony: for art, for Việt Nam, for place, space, and scale. The Cleaving is an exhibition of what the purest academic scholarship can achieve: art."—Lily Hoàng, Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, University of California, San Diego

“Perhaps The Cleaving’s most significant contribution is in contextualizing the work of these artists as part of a remarkably diverse community, as adept practitioners of craft, and as members of a diaspora whose political orientations toward their former and current homelands do not tidily align. This collection compels recognition of the rich aesthetic and creative aspects of such work beyond ‘ethnography to be harvested,’ to borrow from Ocean Vuong’s conversation with Kim Thúy. Simply riveting—I can’t think of anything comparable.”—Daniel Kim, author of The Intimacies of Conflict: Cultural Memory and the Korean War

The Cleaving

About the Book

About the Author

Reviews

The Cleaving

About the Book

About the Author

Reviews

Table of Contents