The Colors of April : Fiction on the Vietnam War’s Legacy 50 Years Later

“A beautifully curated, deeply moving collection.” —San Francisco Book Review

Fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War, literary voices of the Vietnamese-American diaspora as well as Vietnam-based authors speak to the experience of those who left and those who stayed in THE COLORS OF APRIL, a collection of new short fiction curated by award-winning translators and editors 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 an anthology of fiction that finally speaks to the global 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 Viet Thanh Nguyen (Pulitzer Prize winner, The Sympathizer), Andrew Lam (PEN/Beyond Margins Award winner, Perfume Dreams), Barbara Tran (Lannan Foundation Award winner, In the Mynah Bird's Own Words), Vu Tran (Whiting Award winner, Dragonfish) and many more.

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.

Editor Quan Manh Ha is Professor of English at the University of Montana and the co-translator of Other Moons: Vietnamese Short Stories of the American War and Its Aftermath, among other titles. Co-editor 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, Ha and Tran co-translated and co-edited Bảo Ninh’s Hà Nội at Midnight.

Complete list of contributors in alphabetical order: BẢO Thương, Thuy DINH, ĐỖ Thị Diệu Ngọc, Anvi HOÀNG, HOÀNG Phượng Mai, LẠI Văn Long, Andrew LAM, LÊ Phương Anh, LÊ Vũ Trường Giang, LƯU Vĩ Lân, Vi Khi NAO, NGÔ Thế Vinh, Annhien NGUYEN, NGUYỄN Minh Chuyên, NGUYỄN Huy Cường, NGUYỄN Thị Kim Hòa, NGUYỄN Mỹ Nữ, Phùng NGUYỄN, NGUYỄN Thu Trân, NGUYỄN Đức Tùng, Viet Thanh NGUYEN, Kevin D. PHAM, Tuan PHAN, Gin TO, Barbara TRAN, Elizabeth TRAN, TRẦN Thị Tú Ngọc, Vu TRAN, VĂN Xương, Christina VO, VŨ Cao Phan, and VƯƠNG Tâm

Quan Manh Ha (editor) was born and grew up in Vietnam. He came to the United States 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.