Vietnam Archives -

Litstack Recs: The Refugees & All the Light We Cannot See

The Refugees: Stories, by Viet Thanh Nguyen In celebration of #ShortStoryMonth, this week’s rec looks at another great story collection I’ve read and recommended this year. Fans of The Sympathizer, Nguyen’s debut novel that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016, will find much of what they loved in the author’s second book of short stories. [….]

Litstack Rec: The Refugees: Stories & All Our Wrong Todays

The Refugees: Stories, by Viet Thanh Nguyen Fans of The Sympathizer, Nguyen’s debut novel that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016, will find much of what they loved in the author’s second book of short stories. Where The Sympathizer explores the effects of the Vietnamese War, and the experience of refugees’ displacement through the taut [….]

Birthdays

On this day, December 12, in 1821, Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen, France. Never married, he was an unapologetic sensualist with both men and women and suffered from STDs most of his life. Although he wrote numerous works and was a prolific letter writer, he is mainly remembered for his masterpiece, Madame Bovary. Published in 1856, it created a scandal in its “scrupulously truthful portraiture of life.” Flaubert was charged with immorality by the government upon its publication (his heroine has numerous affairs in an attempt to escape her empty life), but was acquitted. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1880 at age 56.