Index of authors (i)

from the janitor at the Viet Nam Literature Project

We list here our Viet Nam letters by the author given in the subtitle to each letter. They come in alphabetical order by given name rather than family name.

The first 2 sentences of each Viet Nam letter appear with its entry, in italic. Our janitor, not the author named, wrote those.

This author index jumps around the alphabet as I draw each entry from the one to titles. That one is current for titles beginning A through C as of December 30, 2022.

J

Janitor

Black Americans in Viet Nam Letters (i). October 5, 2022.

I am aware that my cheerful interest in what black Americans of talent and intellect have had to say occasioned by the nation of Viet Nam is a taste few wish to acquire.

John A. Williams

Captain Blackman (i). April 4, 2022.

"The guys'll come splashing down here, Blackman thought, thinking there is only one or two of em out there, and they'll drop the hammer on them. What to do?”

Captain Blackman (ii). May 4, 2022.

We left Captain Abraham Blackman, United States Army, supine on the forest floor his head resting against a stump. It is the position in which I continued, from my couch, to read the story we share in mind as he bleeds and I read.

Captain Blackman (iii). June 6, 2022.

Abraham Blackman, Captain, United States Army, is bleeding out staring at the sky in the last days of the Republic of Viet Nam. The Vietnamese Communists had pinned him down with a few rifles, luring his men to rescue and suffer overwhelming ambush.

Captain Blackman (iv). July 23, 2022.

Captain Abraham Blackman, United States Army, is still bleeding out in the Republic of Viet Nam. He had risen from cover to draw fire rather than let his young men walk into ambush from an overwhelming force.

N

Ngạn, Nguyễn Ngọc

Cõi Đem (i). March 23, 2022.

Country of Night, by Nguyen Ngoc Ngan. The author’s family, first name is that of the administration who unified Viet Nam over the same years as George Washington’s did the United States.

Cõi Đem (ii). April 23, 2022.

Night Country? Realm of Night. The first sentence on the first page begins: over there. If you are reading here in daytime then you are reading about what goes on in the shady part of the world.

Cõi Đem (iii). May 25, 2022.

Descriptive statistics on the first paragraph of my favorite novel in Vietnamese. Count of sentences and that of clauses in those sentences vary freely as the chapters also do in length. Walt Whitman’s poetry works the same way. Conversational, expressive, free verbs.

Cõi Đem (iv). July 2, 2022.

First sentence of the novel: Bên ngoài, trời dã sáng lắm. Outside, it’s bright, says the Google translator.

Cõi Đem (v). August 8, 2022.

“Bên ngoài, trời dã sáng lắm.” Outside, it was bright already.

O

Olga Dror

Cult, Culture, and Authority: Princess Liễu Hạnh in Vietnamese History (i). December 21, 2022.

I write these letters to people who read them. I have no audience in mind, files and rows up a raked auditorium.

Cult, Culture, and Authority: Princess Liễu Hạnh in Vietnamese History (ii). December 24, 2022.

Spirit, wind moved on the face of the water and here we are in creation. Spirit, breath moves in and out of lungs, inspiration so we get all excited then expiration when we drop dead, dust.