CAPTIVATING NOVEL UNFLINCHINGLY EXPLORES VIETNAM WAR FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A YOUNG REFUGEE
With the anniversary of the start of the Vietnam War approaching on November 1, we stop to take the time to remember those who served and lost their lives for our country. But do we ever stop to think of those who were impacted on the other side of the war? Shock Peace: The Search for Freedom by author and refugee CieCie Tuyet Nguyen explores the war from a different perspective: that of a survivor in the fall of Saigon who unflinchingly recounts the horrors of life after the Vietnam War.
A fictional account based on historical facts and the personal experiences of the author, Shock Peace follows young Trinh’s journey as she searches for freedom. A Vietnamese teenager, Trinh has lived through the dark days that led to the fall of Saigon in 1975 and three years under the new regime. The book follows Trinh as she witnesses human rights and freedom stripped brutally away from herself, her family and her countrymen. After struggling with poverty, starvation, desperation, and control, the yearning for freedom propels Trinh and her family to make a daring move – an attempt to escape by boat and face the threat of attack by pirates. At the cost of freedom, 500,000 of her countrymen had perished, most by drowning as they tried to flee. Trinh’s family survived only to face the uncertainty of a resettlement camp.
CieCie Tuyet Nguyen was born in Saigon and witnessed its fall in 1975 when she was 13-years-old. After continuing to live there for three years under the communist regime, she escaped with her family by boat to Malaysia in 1978. After staying in a Pulau Besar Refugee camp for three months, she resettled in Sydney, Australia, where she has remained ever since. She graduated with a bachelor of pharmacy in 1985 from Sydney University and has operated her own pharmacy since 1989. Nguyen has self- published two short stories and memoirs in Vietnamese, one in 2011 and one in 2016. Shock Peace: The Search for Freedom is her first novel.
Nguyen believes Shock Peace is the first book written in English by a refugee with firsthand experience of life under the rule of the brutish Vietcong. An account of the trials and triumphs of refugees, Shock Peace highlights the hidden strength of people, even as they face the lowest moments in their lives.
“I remember how we could laugh and cry at the same time,” Nguyen reveals. “With stoic endurance and a strong will to survive, I think the human race could manage to go through any crisis in their life as long as they refuse to give up.”
For more information about Shock Peace: The Search for Freedom, please visit Nguyen’s website or Facebook page.
Shock Peace: The Search for Freedom is available for purchase on on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and other online retailers.
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