If: Life Writing, History, and Speculation

Join Vinh Nguyen in conversation with Cheryl Narumi Naruse Monday September 8 at 5:00 pm, as they discuss the perils of historiography in war’s afterlife, the possibilities of speculation in memoir, and the politics of refugee experiences in relation to Nguyen’s speculative memoir The Migrant Rian Falls in Reverse. Copies of this and his other works will be on sale at this event.

About the book: With the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the U.S. war in Vietnam ended, but the refugee crisis was only beginning. Among the millions of people who fled Vietnam by boat were Vinh Nguyen, along with his mother and siblings, and his father, who left separately and then mysteriously vanished.

Decades later, Nguyen goes looking for the story of his father. What he discovers is a sea of questions drifting above sunken truths. To come to terms with the past, Nguyen must piece together the debris of history with family stories that have been scattered across generations and continents, kept for decades in broken hearts and guarded silences.

 

The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse takes readers on a poignant tour of disappeared refugee camps, abandoned family homes, and the lives that could have been. As the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War approaches, this powerful memoir is timelier and more important than ever, illuminating the stories, real and imagined, that become buried in the rubble of war.

 

Vinh Nguyen is the author of the speculative memoir The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse and the academic book Lived Refuge: Gratitude Resentment, Resilience. He is an associate professor at the University of Waterloo.