Viet Thanh Nguyen

Nine years of age, listening, hearing about my parents being shot, 16 years of age, seeing a gunman in our house, I understood in the end that, in fact, these things really did matter.

That how I had coped with the refugee experience was by turning myself off emotionally, by just becoming completely numb emotionally.

So when my brother said, what's wrong with you?

I thought that was what was wrong with me.

I couldn't feel anything.

And so that was my coping mechanism.

So sometimes when people go through horrifying traumatic experiences, they bear the traces and the scars very visibly.

Sometimes it's much quieter.

And that was the case for me.

And sometimes the traumas are incredible, like people drowning and dying and being shot.

But sometimes for so many of us who have been through traumatic experiences, the trauma is a lot quieter.

And I think that's especially true also for the children of people who've been through trauma.

We watch what our parents have gone through, we're the eyewitnesses to eyewitnesses, and we bear those scars as well.

I think it's actually a very good novel.

Whether it's a great novel, I have no idea.

I think it's very good.

I'm a literary critic, so I think I know what I'm talking about, but I'm obviously very biased.

So that was one reason.

I think technically, artistically, I think the novel was doing stuff that people hadn't seen before.

Because you have to remember, Americans think they know what the Vietnam War is.