The Cemetery of Chua Village and Other Stories

This seventh volume in the “Voices from Vietnam” series introduces U. S. readers to another major figure in modern Vietnamese letters: Doan Le. Noted for her versatility of style and her originality, she writes tales that are intensely human and universal, exploring such subjects as greed, marriage, divorce, aging and human rights. For the scholar, these stories give insight into Vietnamese culture after the “renovation”. For the general reader, these are stories that explore all the subtle enigmas of the human heart.

As Wayne Karlin notes in his introduction, “[She] is a master of allegory and gently complex satire…her stories can often be fantastical–Sholom Aleichem’s village of Helm channeled by Kafka through Our Town–or they can be deeply personal and realistic. In both cases they grow unabashedly from the real vicissitudes of her life.”