Interview of Khuê Phạm by Freya Bennett
A young woman, torn between two cultures, belonging to neither. A family, torn apart by a war they had no choice about.
Kiều calls herself Kim because it’s easier for Europeans to pronounce. She knows little about her Vietnamese family’s history until she receives a Facebook message from her estranged uncle in America, telling her that her grandmother is dying. Her father and uncle haven’t spoken since the end of the Vietnam War. One brother supported the Vietcong, while the other sided with the Americans. When Kiều and her parents travel to America to join the rest of the family in California to open her grandmother’s will, questions relating to their past ― to what has been suppressed ― resurface and demand to be addressed.
I had the privilege of speaking with Khuê about her debut novel, Brothers and Ghosts, which captures the tension between cultural expectations and personal identity through the lens of Kiều, a 30-year-old feminist navigating life between two worlds. Our conversation touched on the challenges of belonging, the impact of motherhood, and how the stories of women, both past and present, continue to illuminate universal truths.
In Brothers and Ghosts, Kiều faces the challenges of being an Asian woman torn between two cultures. How do you think her story speaks to the experience of many women who feel caught between different cultural expectations, especially when it comes to identity and belonging?
My main character, 30 year-old Kiều, has grown up in the West and considers herself a feminist, yet she constantly has to negotiate the conservative expectations of her relatives. I feel that many women are caught up between two cultures like her: Are they expected to serve their families or find their happiness through individualism? Is motherhood a free choice or something that they are pressured into in order to “prove their value”? Across time and continents, the souls and bodies of women have always been sites of cultural clashes. Kiều’s story is a reflection of that.
The book addresses the clichés and expectations placed on Asian women. What do you hope readers will take away from Kiều’s journey, and how does this challenge or expand these stereotypes?
Beautiful, modest and demure, but with a hidden sexual power – that’s the cliché (and male fantasy) of Asian women. It always makes me laugh because when I think of Asian women, I think of their strength and toughness. In Brothers and Ghosts, I‘ve drafted several female characters who embody that: Kiều‘s mother, who becomes an anti-war activist as a student. Kiều’s new friend Lee, who is gay and forces her to confront some inconvenient truths about herself. And her grandmother, who takes on a terrible secret in order to protect her children.
You gave birth after submitting the manuscript for Brothers and Ghosts (congratulations on both your book baby and baby baby haha). How has becoming a mother shaped your perspective on the themes in Brothers and Ghosts, and how does it influence your work as a writer?
Looking back on that time, I do really feel that I gave birth to two new beings, a book and a son. I was in a terrible shape after giving birth and sat down to do the edits on my manuscript about four months after. Suddenly I felt like I was looking at a former version of myself. Take for example the question of home: I always felt that home was something only other people possessed – Germans who go back over several generations. As a mother, I feel that I’ve built my own home for my son and my family.
The novel touches on the strained relationship between Kiều’s father and uncle, rooted in the Vietnam War. Did writing this story prompt you to reflect on your own family’s history? How much of your personal experience is woven into the book?
It absolutely made and helped me think about the history of my own family. Before I started writing, I visited my relatives in Vietnam and the US and conducted long interviews with them. Many of their experiences of war and escape made it into the book, albeit in fictionalized versions. And of course, many of the doubts and questions Kiều ponders are inspired by the thoughts I had when I was younger.
Kiều chooses to call herself “Kim” because it is easier for Europeans to pronounce, a decision that reflects her struggle with identity. Can you speak about how language plays a role in shaping one’s identity, especially for women in multicultural settings?
In Vietnamese – and other Asian languages – social hierarchies are coded into the language. You don’t speak about yourself simply as “I” when talking to another person – you call yourself “older sister” or “niece”, addressing the other person as “younger brother” or “uncle” depending on their age, gender and position in the family (it’s complicated). This makes a huge difference in the way you think about yourself: in relation to other people? Or as a “free” individual? To me, this symbolizes the key difference between Asian collectivist thinking and Western individualism.
In many cultures, women’s stories are often overlooked or silenced. How did you ensure that the female perspective remains central in Brothers and Ghosts, and what role does the feminist lens play in your storytelling?
The German literary scene is shaped by the tastes and opinions of men (who win most awards, dominate literary criticism and run most publishing houses), while most of the readers are female. Funny, isn’t it? But frankly, I did not know this when I started on this novel, nor did I actively think about writing from a feminist perspective. The female characters came to me naturally, for the reasons sketched out above, simply because they represent the truth.
Since becoming a mother, have you found that your understanding of feminism or your writing has evolved? How does the experience of motherhood affect your views on gender roles, especially in the context of your own family history?
That’s a deep and big question, thank you for asking! Becoming a mother made me rethink my understanding of freedom, independence and self-expression through work. I can no longer write, travel and fight myself through life as I used to, and sometimes that‘s hard. At the same time, my son is the miracle of my life, and he makes me ridiculously happy. I‘m exploring these new challenges and contradictions in my next novel, so I guess that’s my way of dealing with them: through writing.
Brothers and Ghosts is out in Australia through Scribe.
