“For more than forty years, I had my story in mind, but I couldn’t piece it together, especially the last two months of the Vietnam War. Thanks to the attentiveness, respect and talent of Patrick Froehlich, ex-surgeon and French novelist based in Montreal, Maï Nguyen, make-up artist for 30 years, having left Vietnam on April 30, 1975, was finally able to break the silence. Put into words by the author of the triptych Foreign bodies (Les Allusifs, 2017, 2018, 2020), the fragmented story of the woman who was ten years old when she crossed the boat people goes back painfully over time, sometimes with the help of testimonies from members of his family. Even if certain events, the simplest as well as the most traumatic, remain vague in her mind, Maï Nguyen analyzes with lucidity the past as well as what connects her to her native land and her adopted country. A duty of memory where resilience prevails over resentment.
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