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Cathy Linh Che is a Vietnamese American writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Split, winner of the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America and the Creative Writing: Poetry Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies; An Asian American A to Z: A Children’s Guide to Our History; and Becoming Ghost. More about this author >
Becoming Ghost documents Cathy Linh Che’s parents’ experiences as refugees who escaped the Vietnam War and then were cast as extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now, placing them at the margins of their own story. The poetry collection uses persona, speculation, and the golden shovel form as a means of moving Vietnamese voices from the periphery to the center. The speaker’s disownment raises questions about the challenges of using parents as poetic subjects, telling familial stories to a broader public, and the meaning of forgiveness.
Cathy Linh Che’s Becoming Ghost is an innovative, memorable, and critical commentary on war and how it reshapes families for generations to come. She explores how colonial narratives of the Vietnam War exploit survivors for profit and render refugees as ghosts in their own stories, minimizing the long-lasting impacts on their lives. She asks us to closely examine who writes history, then demonstrates the power in retelling it.
Cathy Linh Che at the 2025 National Book Awards Finalist Reading
