Đặng Thơ Thơ, in her thirties and in a new country, was able to turn what was just a hobby in Vietnam into her occupation in the United States.
In 1992, she immigrated from Saigon to California and by 2002, the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association was hosting the signing of her first short story collection, “The Winter Exhibition.”
Two decades later, the novelist, short-story writer and editor will be a panelist for VAALA’s fourth Viet Book Fest — an all-day literary event on April 6 celebrating Vietnamese literature.
The event, to be held at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, brings together acclaimed Vietnamese authors who will speak on their writing and this year’s theme: “A Celebration of Vietnamese Diasporic Literature and Storytelling in light of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War’s end.”
For Thơ Thơ, the milestone is an opportunity to “promote Vietnamese literature, strengthen our community ties and provide a platform for discussion between generations.”
Thơ Thơ co-founded the Vietnamese literary e-zine damau.org in 2006, serving now as its editor-in-chief and overseeing its creative direction. The inspiration behind Da Màu, Thơ Thơ said, is to “to promote awareness and acceptance through literary art and expression.”
Da Màu, translating to “skin color,” curates special issues published entirely in Vietnamese. The magazine delves into a wide range of topics, spanning language, race, gender, sexuality and other literary genres. Currently, Da Màu features a special issue commemorating 50 years of diasporic literature, parallel with the theme of Viet Book Fest. For the book festival, Thơ Thơ said she will speak on publishing in the diaspora.
“I started writing when I was in Vietnam, but because of censorship and our family background, I did not dream of having my stories published,” Thơ Thơ said, speaking on her own literary journey. “Isn’t that a privilege? That I can make a living with the Vietnamese language.”
Legal scholar and author Lan Cao will also be featured in this year’s Book Fest, but to speak on the evolution of Vietnamese American voices in literature.
Cao is the author of “The Lotus and the Storm,” “Family in Six Tones” and “Monkey Bridge,” a semi-autobiographical story of a girl and her mother as they flee from Vietnam to the United States at the end of the Vietnam War. Cao herself was flown out of Vietnam in 1975 and came to the States as a 13-year-old refugee.
But for Cao, the 50th anniversary is a “quantitative categorization of something that can not be quantified.”
“A marker of having left a country, starting over in a new country, rebuilding your life, that, to me, is an ongoing process,” Cao said. “Even though I have spent 50 years in this country and fewer in Vietnam, there’s always the sense that there’s a dislocation.”
Growing up, Cao found solace in books, she said. Her favorites include Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children,” Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and James Joyce’s works.
Cao’s passion for literature, she said, is inseparable from the circumstances that persuaded it.
“I want a place to explore that chaos of having a fragment in one place and a fragment in another place,” she said. “Writing is a place that the unruly part of me can explore.”
For the upcoming Book Fest, Cao’s co-panelists include author and journalist Andrew Lam, whose newest book is “Stories from the Edge of the Sea,” and Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of several novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Sympathizer,” recently adapted into an HBO TV series.
Find out more about the Viet Book Fest, including the schedule and panelists, at vaala.org.