diaCRITICS

On Singlish - diaCRITICS Simi[1] Salah[2] English? There is a particular unease to writing about Singlish in English. Not because the two are incompatible, far from it, but because to write about Singlish in the formal regist...

"Singlish is how Singaporeans speak when not watched by the colonial other. Or sometimes, defiantly, when they are." diacritics.org/2026/03/on-s...

I Am Not Mad - diaCRITICS “I Am Not Mad” is a translation of the Vietnamese poem, “Tôi Không Giận” by poet Lê Sông Văn, poignantly inspired by the life of Renée Nicole Good, an award-winning poet and mother who was fatally sho...

"The sun should have set
when the bullet grazed by
like a stray bird
singing its morning song,
a sharp metallic note"

Read Lê Sông Văn's "I Am Not Mad," translated by Đặng Thơ Thơ.

diacritics.org/2026/02/i-am...

what was that? you’re talking too quickly - diaCRITICS when you were youngyou were living the sameday in the refugee campuntil you found yourself carryingbaggage from saigon to california you hung on to words toprotect yourselfand i flinched every timeyou...

Read a new poem by Brandon Vu. diacritics.org/2026/02/what...

I carry you through chinatown - diaCRITICS Alief, Houston TX I carry you through chinatownon lunar new year's eve— softly the karaoke bars dieas hostess girls fly to their nests. Andsoju buddies stumble in a line back to their sports carsexhau...

Chúc mừng năm mới! Read a new Lunar New Year poem by Võ Đức Quang. diacritics.org/2026/02/i-ca...

Bà Nội’s Ghost - diaCRITICS mother and father thoughtthey escaped the whistling missilesbut found it hitched a ridea parasiteclawing out of their stomachs and into their throatsbursting through their mouthsto roar at each other ...

Read a new poem by attic moon. diacritics.org/2026/01/poet...

Letter From Minnesota: A Brief History of ICE in Poems The following poems were written over the last decade, up until and including ICE’s occupation of the Twin Cities. * ________________________________________________________   ________________…

Đenise Hạnh Huỳnh offers a brief history of ICE, in poems.

Viet Film Fest 2025: On Healing Land, Birds Perch - diaCRITICS During my freshman year of high school, while working on a history assignment, I came across a photograph of the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhist monk protesting South Vietnam’s regime i...

“On Healing Land, Birds Perch” investigates the afterlife of an infamous photo. diacritics.org/2026/01/viet...

Knowing Is a Kind of Pain: An Interview with Vaddey Ratner Vaddey Ratner on memory, narrative history, and storytelling as a means of survival.

"I think of memory as finite. It’s personal. Once you’re gone, that memory goes with you. Myth, by contrast, lives beyond you."

Today in PEN Transmissions, Vaddey Ratner on memory, narrative history, and storytelling as a means of survival.

#writing #literature #art

Letter From Minnesota: “There’s Some Good in This World…” I bought my tickets for the theatrical re-release of The Lord of the Rings movies last year. This was before I knew that life on the weekends would be: clean your house, feed your cat, scoop litter…

"I want to tell them, and all Minnesotans: hold on to each other. No turning back." lithub.com/letter-from-...

Knowing Is a Kind of Pain: An Interview with Vaddey Ratner Vaddey Ratner on memory, narrative history, and storytelling as a means of survival.

‘I think of memory as finite. It’s personal. Once you’re gone, that memory goes with you. Myth, by contrast, lives beyond you.’

Today in #PENTransmissions, Vaddey Ratner on memory, narrative history, and storytelling as a means of survival.
pentransmissions.com/2026/01/29/k...

Coi Chừng - diaCRITICS Until age seven, all the boats you knew barrelled througha technicolour sea, a Barbie swinging from the ropeor a pirate of the Caribbean with thatfantastic plastic glow, that airbrushed sea spray. The...

Read a new poem by Antoinette Luu. diacritics.org/2026/01/poet...

Dangerous Games - diaCRITICS Parallels by Vũ Đình Giang (English translation by Khải Q. Nguyễn), the first Vietnamese queer novel to be translated into another language (the French translation by Yves Bouille in 2014), is not a n...

Vũ Đình Giang’s “Parallels” is not for the faint-hearted. diacritics.org/2026/01/book...

Motion Sickness - diaCRITICS Motion sickness runs on my mother’s side of the family.

"Motion sickness runs on my mother’s side of the family." diacritics.org/2025/05/moti...

As we take our yearly December break, a reminder that we’re open to submissions! Visit diacritics.org/submit/ for more info.

In Conversation with Aimee Phan - diaCRITICS Aimee Phan's first book, We Should Never Meet, was published in 2004. A linked short story collection, the book tracks the lives of eight characters across three decades and two continents in the afte...

"If you don’t see yourself in literature, you don’t feel part of the community, you don’t feel part of this world." diacritics.org/2025/09/inte...

Battle Hymn of the Battleaxe Bà Nộis - diaCRITICS Sitting up during twilight hours holding two bottles to newborn twins forces one to slow down and feel the full brunt of patience with every clock tick of the second hand. With no hands free to scroll...

Two grandmothers, two sets of cultural traditions and superstitions. diacritics.org/2025/11/batt...

In Conversation with Dužan Duong - diaCRITICS Dužan Duong’s debut feature film Summer School, 2001 centres around a Vietnamese family living and working near the Czech-German border selling counterfeit goods at the market. After being sent back t...

Vietnamese Czech director Dužan Duong talks with May Ngo about his film “Summer School, 2001.” diacritics.org/2025/11/inte...

The Human Cost of War - diaCRITICS Dương Hướng’s No Man River, an award-winning and widely read modern Vietnamese classic, masterfully explores life in rural north Vietnam during the French Indochina War, Vietnam War, and the border wa...

Dương Hướng’s 1991 classic “No Man River” gets an English translation by Quan Manh Ha and Charles Waugh. diacritics.org/2025/11/book...

Through conversations, Diane Fox presents the human cost of chemical warfare. diacritics.org/2025/10/book...

From South Vietnam to the Bible Belt - diaCRITICS My childhood home in Texas sits on a street off a major road lined with eight Protestant Christian churches. I know this because I used to count them on the way home from school, wondering as a ten-ye...

A tale of southern inheritances. diacritics.org/2025/11/from...

A Vietnamese Finnish Childhood - diaCRITICS Shade and Breeze is the debut work of Quynh Tran, a writer and graduate of the prestigious Biskops-Arnös Writers' School in Sweden. The novel is a collection of vignettes centering on a young Vietname...

So nice to see this long review of Quynh Tran's brilliant Shade and Breeze, which was published in my translation last year from Lolli Editions and is still waiting for a US publisher. Thank you @diacritics-dvan.bsky.social ! diacritics.org/2025/10/book...

A Vietnamese Finnish Childhood - diaCRITICS Shade and Breeze is the debut work of Quynh Tran, a writer and graduate of the prestigious Biskops-Arnös Writers' School in Sweden. The novel is a collection of vignettes centering on a young Vietname...

Quynh Tran’s debut novel opens a rare window into the diasporic Vietnamese experience in Finland. diacritics.org/2025/10/book...

Viet Film Fest 2025: Don’t Cry, Butterfly - diaCRITICS Don’t Cry, Butterfly (Mưa trên cánh bướm) is the debut feature film of Vietnamese director Dương Diệu Linh. Her innovative film, where family drama meets horror meets comedy, has enchanted its audienc...

Dương Diệu Linh’s film is a visual project grounded in northern Vietnamese proverbs and Southeast Asian folklore. diacritics.org/2025/10/viet...

Dear, Fellow Việt Kiều - diaCRITICS I recently traveled to Cát Tiên National Park with my partner, an evolutionary biologist, in search of what Vietnam’s natural beauty still had to offer. This park, one of the largest tropical forests ...

The phenomenon of Việt Kiều returning is nothing new, but what feels different now, however, is the scale, the facile journey, and the dramatic material changes within Vietnam since the early 2000s, writes Vinh Phu Pham. diacritics.org/2025/10/dear...

Viet Film Fest 2025: Select Shorts - diaCRITICS This year, Viet Film Fest featured eleven short film sets spanning themes from “Phim Femme” that expands Vietnamese femininity with queer narratives, to “Ethe(real)” where supernatural forces and spec...

This year, Viet Film Fest featured eleven short film sets. diaCRITICS contributing writer Cathy Duong highlights a number of short films across these brilliantly curated sets. diacritics.org/2025/10/viet...

In Conversation with Aimee Phan - diaCRITICS Aimee Phan's first book, We Should Never Meet, was published in 2004. A linked short story collection, the book tracks the lives of eight characters across three decades and two continents in the afte...

“If you don’t see yourself in literature, you don’t feel part of the community, you don’t feel part of this world.”

@aimeephan.bsky.social chats with Melina Kritikopoulos about her new YA novel, “The Lost Queen.”

diacritics.org/2025/09/inte...

There's still time to apply to the 2026 Tin House Winter Online Workshop!

Applications close today, October 6th. Don't miss out on your chance to expand your writing community and level up your craft at this fully remote experience!

Apply here: tinhouseworkshop.submittable.com/submit/17761...

Souvankham Thammavongsa and Apoorva Bradshaw-Mittal discuss her forthcoming novel “Pick a Color,” the art of absence, making what is real fiction, and keeping the reader wanting for more.

Kevin Nguyen - “Mỹ Documents: A Novel” | The Daily Show YouTube video by The Daily Show

@knguyen.bsky.social on @thedailyshow.com! www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dsp...

Sugar Hunger - diaCRITICS After Jihyun Yun’s “War Soup” and a recipe for sponge cake, a poem for Lien Truong’s cake paintings *** Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, butter and line the base of two cake tins with bakin...

Read a new poem by Thái Hà, with art by Lien Truong. diacritics.org/2025/09/poet...