Aimee Phan Reading
Aimee Phan reads from her collection of short stories entitled We Shall Never Meet. Phan gives a brief historical background of her stories, detailing the project “Operation Baby Lift” during the Vietnam War. “Operation Baby Lift” was the emergency evacuation of 2,600 orphans out of Vietnam a few weeks before the fall of Saigon. Phan also tells about her mother’s involvement in the project, and her subsequent work with Vietnamese foster children when she worked as a social worker in Orange County, California.
Phan explains the layout of her book: four stories are from the viewpoint of Vietnamese orphans either involved in “Operation Baby Lift” or as boat refugees, and four of the stories are from the point of view of individuals who were involved in the implementation of “Operation Baby Lift.” She points out that she chose to write a collection of short stories so she could incorporate many viewpoints of the same situation.
Phan goes on to explain her writing process, claiming that she is a “jigsaw writer"--she writes portions of paragraphs and will go back later to flesh them out. She also comments on her newfound focus on the language of her writing, pointing out that she takes care to ensure that her writing is “crisp”.
In: "Live from Prairie Lights" Audio Archive | Fiction
Authors: Aimee Phan
Date Recorded: March 03, 2005
Works Read: "Motherland" from We Shall Never Meet by Aimee Phan
Program: Live From Prairie Lights
Format: reading
Contributors: Introduction by host Julie Englander.
Topics: Vietnam War, "Operation Baby Lift", writing process,