Viet Thanh Nguyen

My brother had gotten his medical doctorate.

That was what they wanted.

But they thought, okay, okay, fine.

Philosophy doctorate is kind of close to that.

and I became a professor.

And for them, these words had material meaning.

They could sort of wrap their minds around doctorate, professor, university.

I never told them I was going to be a writer.

That was just a step too far.

I think the first time they had a sense of that was when I brought home a short story that I had published in English and then it had been translated into Vietnamese and I gave it to my dad.

I was like, hey, this is in Vietnamese.

You want to know what I'm doing?

And the short story, which appears in The Refugees, is about a young Vietnamese refugee man who comes to San Francisco in 1975, separated from his family, and discovers that he is gay.

My father never mentioned that story to me again.

So did he read it?

I have no idea.

But our typical coping mechanism?

Never talk about anything that can disrupt the harmony.

How do they feel about the accolades?

How do they feel about the success?