What if you were born from the ashes of war, and your very existence was a reminder of the horrors that befell your country? What if you had to search for your parents and your identity in a land that rejected you? What if you had a chance to escape, but it meant leaving behind everything you loved? These are some of the questions that haunt the characters of Dust Child, a powerful and poignant novel by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, the internationally bestselling author of The Mountains Sing.Dust Child ...

"She had tried to live an honest life, but war had given her no choice."

I'm an emotional wreck. I wasn't expecting this book to affect me this way.

Review to follow in a few days.

Reading this was harsh. Like slap in the face. The reality of the collateral damage done by such a grievous and dirty war. The exploitation of women; Amerasian orphans abandoned after American GI's left; the discrimination and torment these mixed orphans experienced for being born with the features of the enemy.A dust child is a homeless orphan in Vietnam. Many of these babies and children left dying on the streets.It’s told from 3 perspectives. Kim, a Vietnamese girl, who leaves the village wit...

In a Nutshell: Reveals some great insights about Vietnam and the aftermath of the American war on the country. The plot was somewhat predictable, but overall, a worthy OwnVoices work.Story Synopsis:2016. Middle-aged Phong is the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese mother, but as he grew up in an orphanage, he doesn’t know anything about his parents except their race. He has now decided to search for his father and using his help, escape to the US with his family to avoid the drudger...

I had wanted to read ‘The Mountains Sing’, but grabbed the chance to read/listen to this book. While I did not find the plot to be path-breaking, but the characters really come alive in this beautiful story – filled with tragedy as well as hope. In the present time, Phong, an Amerasian – born to an American father and a Vietnamese mother during the Vietnam war is trying unsuccessfully to obtain a US visa. There is Dan, who was a helicopter pilot during the war, now in the US, and the events of t...

In 1969 after seeing their friend helping her family by making lots of money from her job in Saigon.. two South Vietnamese sisters leave home to follow her so they can work to get their parents debts paid off after they lost their home.Well… the job is at The Hollywood Bar where they entertain American GI’sThe story goes back and forth between 1969 and recent days as the aftermath from the fleeting love affairs ,and Amerasian children and American fathers searching for each other and the stories...

I loved THE MOUNTAINS SING. This was one of my most highly anticipated reads. It took me a while to get into it, but once I did, I was hooked. The title, Dust Child, translated to bụi đời ("life of dust" or "dusty life"), generally refers to the mixed race children born during and after the Vietnam War.This hits extremely close to home. I have several mixed race cousins born in Vietnam during this time period. While my aunt married her GI, I know many of these babies were either products of rape...

Recently I went to the post and found my Goodreads win, a copy of Dust Child. It was a surprise as I didn’t remember winning it (I did though). The publisher had been so nice to include a note and a small package of Vietnamese coffee (I'm assuming as it wasn't mentioned in the note, what it was, in particular, that was included, and I couldn't read the writing on the package as it was not English). As I have never read the author, Nguyen Phan Que Mai and never had coffee, I was excited. (and I a...

Dear Readers,I am thrilled that my second novel, DUST CHILD, has been published. The seed of this novel was planted many years ago, when I grew up in Southern Việt Nam, where during the late seventies and in the eighties I got a glimpse of the discrimination faced by Amerasians born from the wartime unions between American men and Vietnamese women. Over the years, I kept thinking about those Amerasians and hoping that life had treated them more kindly. In April 2014, I read a story which moved m...

I was lucky to receive a very early copy of the manuscript from the author and cannot wait until this book is out in the world next year. In DUST CHILD, Nguyen Phan displays the same tenderness and compassion for her characters, hard-earned understanding of human trauma, and poetically evocative language that made her debut novel THE MOUNTAINS SING an international bestseller beloved around the world. With characters who will stay with you forever in their desperation to make peace with the past...