The award-winning Catfish and Mandala is the poignant, lyrical tale of an American odyssey--a solo bicycle Voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland.
A vibrant, picaresque memoir written with narrative flair and an eye-opening sense of adventure, Catfish and Mandala is an unforgettable search for cultural identity..
In Vietnam, he\'s taken for Japanese or Korean by his countrymen, except, of course, by his relatives, who doubt that as a Vietnamese he has the stamina to complete his journey (Only Westerners can do it); and in the United States he\'s considered anything but American.
Following the suicide of his sister, Pham quit his job, sold all of his possessions, and embarked on a year-long bicycle journey that took him Through the Mexican desert; on a thousand-mile loop from Narita in South Korea to Kyoto in Japan; and, after five months and 2,357 miles, to Saigon, where he finds nothing familiar in the bombed-out darkness.
His father had been a POW of the Vietcong; his family came to America as boat people.
Pham was born in Vietnam and raised in California.
Andrew X.
Intertwined with an often humorous travelogue spanning a year of discovery is a memoir of war, escape, and ultimately, family secrets.
Winner of the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Winner of the Whiting Writers\' Award A Seattle Post-Intelligencer Best Book of the Year Catfish and Mandala is the story of an American odyssey--a solo bicycle Voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam--made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland.
The award-winning Catfish and Mandala is the poignant, lyrical tale of an American odyssey--a solo bicycle Voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland
