We'll meet again in San Francisco

by Dương Thụy ; translated by Elbert Bloom

A woman nurtured a love for twenty years and didn’t expect to see the man in her dream one more time, but one day, that man suddendly came back. What did she have to do when she was torn between this childhood lover and another man who just came into her life? This story describes Sai Gon in the eighties through the memories of the protagonist, a grown-up woman. The story also describes some modern landscapes in Europe and America, for example Paris, Chicago and San Francisco.

323 pages

Published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[✨ jami ✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Around the world challenge: Vietnam

3.5 stars.

This is a contemporary fiction, almost an anti-romance. It explores the tension the main character experiences between western and traditional Vietnamese living and expectations of women, especially in romance.

I thought the exploration of this tension was really well done, especially in the way this book used the 'love triangle' to tease that out. I also thought it had an interesting ending. Where it fell down for me a bit is that it was a little clunky, and I'm not sure if it was the writer or translator. But some scenes didn't really come together. I also thought it felt like the last third became very basic and rushed, whereas the first half had more descriptive and emotive writing.

I bought this book in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City when I was visiting in 2023. I thought the descriptions of Vietnam, particularly Saigon, were really nice. I felt like I was back there.

[Kamran Sehgal · Rating 2 out of 5]

A generic romance with an outrageously poor translation. Some sentences sounded about as human as AI written shlop.

Interesting for a rare glimpse into Vietnamese culture. The weird "penis names" were particularly humourous to read and learn about.