From SBWIRE
As next year marks the fortieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, millions of Americans will share their stories and their perspectives with the world. However, the Vietnamese people also have an important voice that seldom gets the attention it deserves. In her compelling new novel, Caroline Vu gives that voice to the Vietnamese Boat People – over two millions natives who fled their country on water after the war.
Cover of “Palawan Story.” Photo from Amazon.com
Synopsis:
Under the cover of darkness, Kim, a young girl, is put by her mother on a crowded fishing boat to escape Vietnam. The derelict boat drifts for two weeks on the South China Sea before reaching Palawan, a refugee camp in the Philippines. There, an American immigration officer mistakes Kim for a sponsored orphan with the same name and sends her to America.
In the US, Kim tells her unsuspecting adoptive family the orphan stories they want to hear. While she succeeds in inventing vivid details for her assumed identity, there is a missing page in her own past. The boat trip out of Vietnam is a total blank, and she fears the worse. Years later Kim returns to Palawan as a volunteer doctor. Still haunted by what may have happened on the boat, she begins to record the stories of the other refugees. Through them, she seeks to unblock her suppressed memories.
“This novel gives a vital glimpse into the life of refugees, into their struggles with truth and identity as they attempt to piece together their pasts,” says Vu, a Vietnamese-Canadian who has vivid memories of war playing out on her doorstep. “Cross-cultural stories are very popular these days and timing for this type of narrative has never been better.”
Read the full story from SBWIRE.
