Watermark: Vietnamese Poetry and Prose (Asian American Writers' Workshop) - Tapa blanda

"Watermark is simply some of the best writing from a new generation of Vietnamese writers in America. Eloquent, poignant, funny -- the writing goes beyond war -- taking us into the towns and fields of America. This is the Vietnamese literature of the future, 'a taste of the pure, sea salt sadness of the outcast' (to paraphrase Monique T.D. Truong) made inclusive by the editors' uncommon and judicious selections." Russell Leong, Editor, UCLA Amerasia Journal "Vietnamese-American literature is young. Your can hardly tell it, though, from this collection of stories published by the Asian American Writers' Workshop in New York. Here is an array of diverse talents that surprise and delight. Keen observation or exuberant fancy. Gentle humor, urbane charm, or devilish wit. Real life or the magic of dreams. Read Watermark and treat yourself to some fiction that transcends mere documents of the Vietnamese-American experience." Huynh Sanh Thong, Publisher and General Editor, The Vietnam Review

Here, the most innovative contemporary Vietnamese American writers explore thematic and stylistic territory previously overlooked in other collections, which have traditionally focused on the all-too-expected theme of war. Watermark lifts all constraints, leaving the works to reset the boundaries for themselves. And they do -- using poetry, fiction, and experimental forms to venture further into the fringes of the Vietnamese American psyche. There they find a dead dog and hockey puck, a frozen (literally) grandmother, a hairpiece, Gertrude Stein, and a stick of spearmint gum. Here fiction and poetry reflect and refract on adolescence and sexuality, language, death, and distance. The result is a sly, haunting, wry look at life anywhere.