Project Description

A first ever novel based on true stories about the Vietnamese boat people en route to Hong Kong from the northern part of Vietnam.

“Đường Phía Bắc (2012) [The Northern Route] (my translation) by Lê Đại Lãng, a writer living in Vietnam, is a rare book that brings together the accounts of many Northern Vietnamese boat people who did or did not make it to a third country. They face horrendous sea dangers, treacherous land dilemma, and rejections at the refugee camps for coming after the UNHCR has applied strict and arbitrary screening procedures for admittance to a third country. I argue (Glassey-Tranguyen, 2012b) that The Northern Route is a silenced history of the boat people coming from the North, whose experiences and stories remain shrouded and unknown in the Vietnamese diasporic historiography.”