Richmond-based author Philip Huynh is getting ready to release his first collection of short fiction this week, in the hopes of sharing an all-encompassing perspective of Vietnamese immigrants.
Born in Vancouver to parents who left Vietnam during the civil war, Huynh has been writing this collection of stories, called The Forbidden Purple City, for over 10 years. For Huynh, some understandings of Vietnamese immigrants can be a bit narrow.
“One of the concerns of the collection is about Vietnamese immigrants particularly,” he said. “What it’s not literally about (is) the Vietnam War. I do find the tendency for people in North America a lot of times is to associate Vietnam not with the place but with the war.”
Huynh said his stories “don’t ignore the war,” but instead aim to capture the diversity of the Vietnamese community.
“The short story collection is such a great medium,” he said. “You don’t just have to focus on one life and one character and one theme, but you can explore tons of different characters and tons of different themes.”
Some of those themes, Huynh said, are universal and not just relevant to people in the Vietnamese community.
“Obviously Canada is a nation of immigrants,” he said. “A lot of the themes that I try to write about, whether it’s culture shock, whether it’s ambition in a new country, whether it’s about growing up with people and having some of your close relatives or friends get above you or fall down below you on the life ladder in a new world, I think these are universal themes.”
Huynh said that while some of the stories in his collection might hint at parts of his real life, they aren’t autobiographical. For example, many of the stories take place in cities he’s lived in.
“I take these geographical details and perhaps cultural details and try to create a diverse set of characters and set of relationship dynamics that I don’t necessarily have personal experience in,” Huynh said.
Of course, one of the cities he’s lived in is here in Richmond, where’s he’s been rooted for the past decade. Huynh said he loves Richmond for its “vibrant community.”
“Richmond truly is like a gateway between Asia and North America,” he said. “I’ve always been fascinated by Richmond.”
Huynh’s debut will take place on Thursday, March 28 at 7 p.m. at Massy Books in Vancouver. He’ll be joined by Andrew Battershill, who was Richmond’s writer-in-residence last fall.
