“Writing the memoirs of many in one” dans Monkey Bridge et The Lotus and The Storm de Lan Cao

Abstract

This article focuses on Lan Cao’s two works of fiction to address the themes of exile from Vietnam as well the conflicts linked to a dual culture and the reconstruction of memories after the Vietnamese broke away from a nation whose history and culture was progressively denied and erased by the American dominant discourse on the Viet Nam war and its aftermath. Drawing from autobiographical material as well as the family stories passed on to her, Cao weaves together the narrative voices of a mother and daughter (Monkey Bridge), then of a father and daughter (The Lotus and the Storm) to dramatize the processes of re-membering of the exiles’ sense of identity and history.