Enduring Spirit of Vietnam
Large numbers do not communicate lived experience.
Growing up, it always galled me that, in the popular imagination, so much more airtime was given to the 58,000 US service members that died than to the over 2 million Vietnamese, soldiers and civilians, who lost their lives in that long conflict.
Now, I understand that with devastation, like with love, it’s not a measurable quantity; it’s possible to make room in our hearts for the totality of the tragedy while also appreciating that some corners, some unknown stories, will never come to light. Many lives were lived and cut short in silent anguish.
I read Bao Ninh’s “The Sorrow of War” roughly seven or eight years ago and it was the first extended experience I had through the point-of-view of a North Vietnamese soldier. Soon after, I read William Duiker’s mammoth 800-page biography of Ho Chi Minh and I began to understand the intricacies of the multi-decade conflict.
Tomorrow, I will be moderating a conversation in Chicago with author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai and photographer Peter Steinhauer. The event, titled “Enduring Spirit of Vietnam,” marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and explores how art and storytelling can help us heal, remember, and connect.
As the world contends with similar intractable conflicts, I think this is the right time to have this conversation and I hope, if you are free tomorrow, that you will be able to make it to The Haymarket at 6pm. Reserve your free spot here
Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is the author of thirteen books in Vietnamese and English, most recently the global bestselling novels The Mountains Sing and Dust Child. I’ve heard her address an audience before and her dynamism and sincerity electrified hundreds of people at the Bangalore Lit Fest.
Peter Steinhauer is an artist photographer, and he lived and worked in Asia for twenty years, beginning in Vietnam in 1993.
No war is contained just as no man is an island. Conversations like the one we’ll be having tomorrow will hopefully ensure that we don’t endlessly repeat the mistakes of the past.
If you can’t make it that night, Quế Mai will also be speaking at on Thursday, May 8 — I encourage you to check that one out too.
Hope to see you there!
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