Dana Sachs is a journalist specializing in topics related to Vietnam. Her work has appeared in The Far East Economic Review, Mother Jones, Sierra, and the San Francisco Examiner. In collaboration with her sister, Lynne Sachs, she made the award-winning documentary film about Viet Nam, Which Way is East, which was screened at the Sundance Film Festival and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She was a translator for The Other Side of Heaven.

She was also one of the first graduates of UNCW's MFA Program in Creative Writing. Her thesis was later published as The House on Dream Street and was chosen as the first "One Book, One Community" pick for Wilmington.

If You Lived Here

Forty-two-year-old Shelley Marino's desperate yearning for a child has led her to one of the only doors still open to her: foreign adoption. It is a decision that strains and ultimately shatters her relationship with her husband, Martin--the veteran of an Asian war who cannot reconcile what Shelley wants with what he knows about the world. But it unites her with Mai, who emigrated from Vietnam decades ago and has now acquired the accoutrements of the American dream in an effort to dull the memory of the tragedy that drove her from her homeland. As a powerful friendship is forged, two women embark on a life-altering journey to the world Mai left behind--to confront the stark realities of a painful past and embrace the promise of the future.

The House on Dream Street

In this heartfelt memoir, Dana Sachs takes the reader on a sensual and textured voyage to a country most Americans think about only in terms of war. A finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Award, this deftly written narrative reveals how Sachs settled in with slick, warmhearted Tung and his quietly tenacious wife Huong in Hanoi and made a place for herself in "enemy" territory. With vivid descriptions of the community--the noodle stalls and roaring motorcycles, the vestiges of French colonialism, and the encroachment of glittering high-rises--Sachs explores the tenuous balance between the traditions of old Vietnam and a country in the throes of modernization. Sachs's honest depiction of her difficulties renders her triumphs and love for the country and its people all the more poignant and compelling.

Two Cakes Fit for a King: Folktales from Vietnam

For centuries, Vietnamese have sustained the history of their nation, both actual and mythic, through their folklore. These stories, passed from generation to generation, contain not only the national saga, but also fundamental cultural values that Vietnamese hold dear. Some stories, like "A Daughter's Love, " are imaginative accounts of early Vietnamese history. Others, like "The Anger of the Waters" and the title story, "Two Cakes Fit for a King, " provide colorful explanations of the world and how it works. "The Story of Watermelon Island" offers readers a glimpse of the traditional agrarian values and way of life that are the foundation of Vietnamese society. Imaginative and captivating, funny and sometimes tragic, these tales have remained popular and culturally significant for Vietnamese, young and old, for hundreds of years. The intricate illustrations draw on centuries-old painting styles and on natural imagery and everyday life in Vietnam.
 

Crossing the River(Voices from Vietnam, #5)

"Crossing the River "presents a wide range of Nguyen Huy Thiep's short fiction, both realistic stories in contemporary settings and retellings of folk myths that serve as contemporary parables. When Thiep's stories first appeared in the 1980s, they set off a chain of debate, not only within intellectual and political circles, but also within the society at large. Typically, the struggles of his characters were about survival, not survival in the context of war or revolution, but survival in the context of the emotional and psychological strength it takes to live within the harsh confines of post-war Vietnamese society. Thiep captured the emotional quality of Vietnamese life in a way no other author had done, and his importance can be recognized today by his enormous influence on younger writers.

Nguyen Huy Thiep, who was born in Hanoi in 1950, spent much of his youth in rural Vietnam where his mother worked as an agricultural laborer. By 1987, he began to be published in the major literary journals in Vietnam, and in 1988, more than 20 of his stories were published. He is widely considered Vietnam's finest short story writer.

The Stars, the Earth, the River: Short Stories by Le Minh Khue(Voice from Vietnam)

These fourteen stories, written over the last two decades, give readers a view of life in Vietnam before, during and after the war with the United States. They explore in direct, clear language such themes as love and war, the tangles of family relationships, and the complexities of post-war life.