The dragon hunt

by Vũ Trà̂n

A boat full of refugees runs aground on a coral reef. A sister and brother engage in a bizarre passion play inside a stifling Paris apartment. A love triangle mimics the perverse course of history in an ancient town. A writer receives a surreal welcome in an imaginary country that both is and isn't Vietnam. A group of exiles meets at a European country estate to slaughter dragons and devour each other in a ritualistic invocation of the Vietnam wars. This is the world of Tran Vu, a world of twisted eroticism and baroque pageantry, where characters possess an infinite capacity for tenderness and cruelty. Vu is able to convey the trauma of the refugee experience in a way that no writer of his generation has before.