Reviews

Book Review: Here I Am, Burn Me by Kimberly Nguyễn

Kimberly Nguyen’s words are a punch in the gut, an inspiration, and an evocation of nostalgia, grief, pain, and hope—all at once. Her poems navigate the complexities of life through many lenses: history of the war torn homeland, the journey to reclaiming and preserving the mother language, growing up as chi hai, the “eldest daughter of an eldest daughter of an eldest daughter,” and complicated family relationships. The collection does not leave any topic untouched, and the reader will turn the pages with their heart in their throat.

Book Review: Owner of a Lonely Heart by Beth Nguyen

The uncomfortable feelings and experiences that we face as the children of Vietnamese refugees are encapsulated in Owner of a Lonely Heart, a memoir lodged in Beth Nguyen’s experience as a Vietnamese American. A sense of finality spans her book, accenting events like when our parents left Vietnam, after which some of us forgot our roots and those left behind in Vietnam.

Between the Mekong and Mississippi

Giữa Hai Giòng Sông/Between Two Rivers/Entre deux rivières is the first retrospective of An-My Lê’s three-decade career by a major American museum.

Book Review: Anam by André Dao

As an autofictional work that is part memoir, novel, and essay collection, Anam is a curious product of academic research, philosophical inquiry, oral history, and imagination.

Book Review: The Betrayed by Reine Arcache Melvin

Siblinghood is an intriguing thing: there could hardly be anyone in the world closer to a person than their sibling, but at the same time, the same world and circumstances can look so differently from each sibling’s perspective. The winner of the 2019 National Book Award for fiction, The Betrayed by Filipina-American writer and translator Reine Arcache Melvin, explores this complex relationship with heart, following two sisters as they navigate life in the Philippines through a turbulent dictatorship. 

Book Review: My Yellow Heart by Vi Khi Nao

Zuihitsu, “lists built to cause surprise through a mix of surprise and variety,” are the cornerstone of Vi Khi Nao’s latest poetry collection My Yellow Heart. Prefaced by a copy of a blast email sent towards the end of March 2022, the collection is framed as an elongated response to a prompt. The email’s sender is Erik Ehn, who asks the recipients to practice in zuihitsu, “compassionate noting” for two weeks following the theme of “changed-for-changing.” The poetry collection follows suit, immediately creating a narrative through numbered lists, with the first half of poems titled with dates, as if in response to the prompt.