diasporic identity-new book out!

Those of us interested in diasporic identities might be interested in this new book, which comes with rave reviews from Cathy Riessman ( a recent visiting Leverhulme Professor with the Centre for Narratives and Transfromative Learning ( CenTraL) in the Graduate School of Education), whose critical opinion is highly regarded-

'I love every page of this stunning book' is praise indeed!

Nguyen, Nathalie Huynh Chau
_Memory Is Another Country: Women of the Vietnamese Diaspora_ (Santa Barbara,
Calif.: Praeger, 2009). xii + 212pp. Bibliographical references and Index. 22
B&W Photographs. Hardcover $39.95 £27.95
ISBN: 0-313-36027-8 ISBN-13: 978-0-313-36027-5

BOOK DESCRIPTION: This is the first study to apply memory and trauma theories to a substantial base of oral narratives by Vietnamese women living in the West.The act of remembering is a means of bringing the past alive and an imaginative way of dealing with loss. It has been the subject of much recent scholarship, and is of particular relevance at a time of widespread transnational migration. For refugees, memory acquires a particular power and
poignancy, since the country that they remember is now lost to them. The memories of Vietnamese refugees have been moulded by their experience of diaspora, and many guard these memories with silence, a silence that relates not only to the departure from Vietnam and the exodus itself, but also to the impact of grief and the loss of family members. Memory Is Another Country is a valuable contribution to the field ofdiaspora studies. Based on in-depth oral narratives collected from 40 Vietnamese women, it deals with themes both universal and specific to this diaspora: divergent memories in families, the significance of homeland, the return to Vietnam, cross-cultural relationships, intergenerational tensions, and the issues of silence and unspoken trauma among Vietnamese refugees.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Nathalie Huynh Chau Nguyen holds an ARC Australian Research Fellowship at the
Australian Centre, School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne. A
graduate of the universities of Melbourne and Oxford, she is the author of
_Vietnamese Voices: Gender and Cultural Identity in the Vietnamese
Francophone Novel_ (2003) and _Voyage of Hope: Vietnamese Australian Women's
Narratives (2005), which was shortlisted for the 2007 NSW Premier's Literary
Award.