Hoa Pham
Hoa Pham reviews Anguli Ma: A Gothic Tale by Chi Vu
'The suburban setting is portrayed as stark and unfriendly to the Vietnamese characters. The characterisation of Anguli Ma is similarly intense, from the bloody scissors he uses for his work at the abattoir, to the running over and eating of a dog in a suburban wasteland.'
Hoa Pham, writer, playwright, and founding editor of Peril, illuminates the Buddhist and Australian gothic elements in Chi Vu’s 2013 novella Anguli Ma: A Gothic Tale, which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Community Relations Prize. Hoa Pham observes that, importantly, Chi Vu’s dark novella offers ‘a counter-narrative to the brightness of other popular refugee narratives’.
Those interested in reading the critical essay on 1.5 Generation Vietnamese-American writers by Chi Vu, which is referenced in the piece, can do so via the Kunapipi magazine archive.
A Cloud Floating in a Piece of Paper
If you are a poet you can see a cloud floating in a piece of paper. You need clouds and rain to water the trees that make paper. Therefore the cloud and paper inter-are.
This is one of my favourite Thich Nhat Hanh sayings, demonstrating the inter connectedness of all things. In this memoir I explore the connectedness between many people and events that inter-are with me. Their stories make up parts of mine.