Khuê Phạm's debut novel follows a young Berlin journalist whose parents emigrated from South Vietnam. A message from an estranged uncle in the U.S. prompts her to explore her family history.
by Khuê Phạm belongs to a new wave of German literature that shows how culturally diverse the country has become since the late 1960s — an era when there were very few Vietnamese living in West and East Germany. Translated into English by Charles Hawley and Daryl Lindsey — Phạm’s debut novel reverberates in clear, dispassionate prose that belies its complex subject matter.
Unlike many immigrant novels featuring economically disadvantaged characters, Kiều, the novel’s first-person narrator, is a 30-year-old journalist from an upper-middle-class family in Berlin. Her parents, who came to West Germany in 1968 as students from South Vietnam, have managed to successfully integrate into German society thanks to the country’s socially progressive agenda.
The issue of allegiance is also a conundrum that has long beset her parents, Minh and Hoa, who, as once-youthful emissaries from a war-ridden country, were burdened by family and national expectations. It was generally understood that once Minh and Hoa graduated from a progressive Western university, they would return to South Vietnam to improve their family members’ socioeconomic status and contribute their efforts toward nation-building, especially in deterring Communist expansion.
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