Night, Fish, and Charlie Parker

$19.95

by Phan Nhien Hao

The work of exile poet Phan Nhien Hao, although he is not permitted to publish in his native Vietnam, is exceptionally well known there. Swaying between poems of the immigrant experience and poems that recollect his homeland’s trauma after the war, his strong, sometimes surreal voice is always intoxicating.

This is a dual language edition (Vietnamese and English).

by Phan Nhien Hao

The work of exile poet Phan Nhien Hao, although he is not permitted to publish in his native Vietnam, is exceptionally well known there. Swaying between poems of the immigrant experience and poems that recollect his homeland’s trauma after the war, his strong, sometimes surreal voice is always intoxicating.

This is a dual language edition (Vietnamese and English).

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About the Author

Phan Nhien Hao, born in Vietnam, immigrated to the US in 1991. He has a BA in Vietnamese Literature from The Teachers College of Saigon, a BA in American Literature from UCLA, and a Masters in Library Science from UCLA. He is the author of two collections of poems, Paradise of Paper Bells (1998) and Manufacturing Poetry 99-04 (2004). He currently lives in Los Angeles.

Advanced Praise

Vince Gotera doesn’t so much review as celebrate Phan Nhien’s Hao’s work in of the North American Review
An overwhelming sense of liminality pervades these poems: “I walk on bridges connecting two alien shores,” says the poet; “my country; which country, I asked.” Surrealism also suffuses Phan’s work, as does jazz: “all I love is jazz jazz jazz and lots of gasoline in my bloody abyss.” Phan draws from Vietnamese, French, and American literatures, mixing traditional and modern Vietnamese cultures with French literature, “imbued with philosophy, with lots of experimentations”: and American literature “suitable to a consumer society and a pragmatic culture, with that American emphasis on results” (as he told translator Linh Dinh in an interview included at the end of the book). Phan adds, “an investigation into American literature would greatly benefit Vietnamese writers. It would [. . .] improve their sense of humor.” All of these qualities are combined in Phan’s work, as glimpsed in the book’s title Night, Fish, and Charlie Parker—especially humor. Phan’s poetry is a distinctly American immigrant text, melancholy and celebratory at the same time. Read this book.

Format:  Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-932195-31-6