Dear Da-Lê
Emily Johansen
, Marissa Yip-Young
, Joseph Chirayil
, Paula Adam
, Jude Castillo
, Brad MULLER
, Lynn Mullen
, Marilyn Stanley
, Katie Kah
, Pamela Bruce
, Ryan Woods
, Agnes Marshall
, Natasha Andres
, Dot Mann
, cassandra schiemann
, Mitchell Schmidt
, Jane Graham
, Tami Osato
, toni velthuis
, Sharon Forzley
, Dorothy Wong
, Sandra Lackie
, Cheryl Johnson
, Noelle Walsh
, Joanna McFarlane-Frampton
, Barry Kazimer
, Sarah Schwartz
, Joshua Lewis
, Margo Beredjiklian
, Mireille Goulet
, Emily Steiner
, Lesley Sturge
, Brittney Warren
, Andrea Pole
, Rita Osullivan
, Joe Titone
, Margaret McKay
, Sara Conway
, Robert Hykawy
, Keltey Buchko
, Alanna Virtue
, Penny Connolly
, Kathryn Galan
, Richard Scarsbrook
, Robert Ratelle
, Christine Lion
, Lynn Bechtel
, Liz Carlin
, zelda dwyer
, Edward Dalton
, Lindsey Andronak
, Sandra Storey
, Marla Schecter Howard
, Benita Hartwell
, Anne McGouran
, Zara Garcia-Alvarez
, Mary Lester
, Tema Frank
, Rachel Edmonds
, Nicki D'Angelo
, Lynn Tait
, Susan Jang
, Barbara Leckie
, Julien Chung
, Ken Gilmour
, Rodney Cross
, Janice Cournoyer
, Kym Marsh
, Lisa Mallia
, Shonna Froebel
, Chris Lantz
, Michelle Arsenault
, Roland Schigas
, Michelle Canfield
, Remi Gunn
, Rosa Cross
, Melissa Poremba
, Itraa Gold
, Anna Rowe
, Alice Meems
, Joe Mitchell
, Catherine Westerberg
, Cherryl Koylass
, kristine hibbs
, Shelley Butcher
, Kevin Smith
, Nora Gould
, Janet Hosokawa
, Stephanie Trotter
, Janet Miller
, Melissa Dingwall
, diana kirkwood
, Audrionna Oliver
, Sarah Dalton
, Vivian Thorgeirson
, Tanis Anne
, Sindi Nika
, Sahar Sa
, M M English
, Sue Zahorak
, Patricia McKeown
, BJ Underwood
, Lisa Bilodeau
, Crystal Inwood
, Diane O'Flaherty
, Kim Cappellina
, Deanna Radford
, P. Thompson
, PATRICIA SOPEL
, Lynn Andrews
, Nancy Reid
, Allison Dube
, Margo Porro
, Sabrina Phan
, Melissa Kohlman
, Dana Derks
, Christine Labelle
, Beth Dekoker
editor@49thShelf.com
In an intensely revealing memoir written for his Canadian daughter, a man breaks a lifetime of silence about the traumas of his childhood in war-torn Vietnam and his years as a refugee in revolutionary Iran.
Spanning decades and generations, this heartfelt memoir began as a series of letters from a worried father. Anh Duong had witnessed terrible things as a child during the Vietnam War, and later as a refugee in Iran during the revolution of the late 1970s. But like many in the Vietnamese diaspora, he had remained silent about his experiences, believing that trauma was better left unspoken. However, when his daughter became involved in student protests, Duong felt compelled to speak about his own experience of uprisings.
In precise prose, Dear Da-Lê moves along a taut narrative thread that begins with Duong’s birth in 1953 and ends with his arrival, frayed and broke, in Canada in 1980. With surprising moments of hope and tenderness amid brutal divisions, the author creates a coming-of-age story intertwined with the human costs of war and exile. Its revelations are sure to resonate not only with the generation born to refugees of the Vietnam War, but with anyone seeking to understand the lasting, often hidden torments of violent conflict and the healing that can take place in the act of telling.
