“A powerful collage that bears witness and wraps the reader in the multiple realities of the Vietnam War.” —Micah Fields, author, We Hold Our Breath; Marine Corps combat veteran

“Puts a human face on the experiences and consequences of war as viewed from the Vietnamese perspective.” —Donald Anderson, editor, War, Literature & the Arts; author, Fragments of a Mortal Mind

Fifty years after the Vietnam War ended, literary voices of the Vietnamese American diaspora and authors currently living in postwar Vietnam speak to the experience of those who left and those who stayed in this anthology of new short fiction edited by Quan Manh Ha and Cab Tran.

For much of the twentieth century, Vietnam played an outsized role on the global stage, charting the destinies of superpowers and reshaping the world’s politics. Now fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War comes The Colors of April, an anthology of fiction that finally speaks to the Vietnamese experience: voices of both those who left and those who stayed, what was gained and lost in the half century since, and for the generations that followed—what it means to be Vietnamese. More than two dozen distinct literary voices are featured in this collection, including those of Viet Thanh Nguyen, Andrew Lam, Barbara Tran, and Vi Khi Nao, among others. The stories are as diverse in style, tone, and subject matter as the ancestral lands of the Vietnamese people. From the rubble of the Ancient Citadel in Quảng Trị to the makeshift orphanages outside Sài Gòn, from Palo Alto to a tony Lincoln Park apartment in Chicago, the narratives straddle continents and generations, the political as well as the personal. But what they share is much greater than their differences. They speak to a common language, to a culture steeped in history and myth and storytelling that vividly captures the enduring spirit of the Vietnamese people.

Quan Manh Ha is Professor of English at University of Montana and the co-translator of Other Moons: Vietnamese Short Stories of the American War and Its Aftermath, among other titles. Cab Tran holds an MFA from University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Vagabond: Bulgaria’s English Monthly, Black Warrior Review, The Iconoclast, and elsewhere. He teaches fiction for Gotham Writers’ Workshop. In 2023, they co-translated and co-edited Bảo Ninh’s Hà Nội at Midnight.

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High Praise for The Colors of April

“The stories in The Colors of April span generations—from the perspectives of native-born Vietnamese survivors to narratives from the contemporary diaspora—forming a powerful collage that bears witness and wraps the reader in the multiple realities of the Vietnam War.” Micah Fields, author, We Hold Our Breath; Marine Corps combat veteran

“It is no doubt a commonplace for Americans to consider the 58,000 dead whose names appear on The Wall in Washington DC, but to be nearly completely unaware of the over 250,000 Vietnamese military casualties, not to mention the 2,000,000 Vietnamese civilian casualties, all deaths that occurred in Vietnam’s homeland, a country that if it had good highways could be driven, width and length, in less than a day. The Colors of April puts a human face on the experiences and consequences of war as viewed from the Vietnamese perspective. To be a fully informed citizen, this book, is, in a word, essential reading.” —Donald Anderson, editor, War, Literature & the Arts; author, Fragments of a Mortal Mind

About the Editors

Quan Manh Ha (editor) was born and grew up in Vietnam. He came to the United States to at the age of 22 for graduate studies and graduated with a doctorate in English from Texas Tech University in 2011. He is currently Professor of English at the University of Montana, where he teaches and researches American literature, Vietnam War literature, multiethnic US literature, and literary translation. He is the co-translator of Other Moons, Hanoi at Midnight, The Termite Queen, Longings, and Light Out and Modern Vietnamese Stories, 1930-1954. He lives in Missoula, Montana.

Cab Tran (editor) was born in Vietnam and emigrated to the United States with his parents during the diaspora. He holds an MFA from the University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers’ Program. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Iconoclast, Black Warrior Review, Parcel, Oleander Review, Distinctly Montana Quarterly, Missoula Independent, and elsewhere. He lives in Helena, Montana.