diaCRITICS https://diacritics.org diaCRITICS highlights art, literature, and stories from writers, artists, and culture-makers of the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diaspora, on and from all shores. Mon, 01 Jun 2026 18:56:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://diacritics.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/diaCRITCS-favicon-150x150.png diaCRITICS https://diacritics.org 32 32 You Dream It and We’ll Make it https://diacritics.org/2026/06/you-dream-it-and-well-make-it/ Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://diacritics.org/?p=63389 My mother swayed in a rocking ship from a refugee camp in Malaysia to the US, huddled behind the backs of wise elders with rotten-peach wrinkled faces, hiding from pirates hounding fresh flesh. In ESL class, she learns how to say, “Hello, my name is H and I am from Vietnam” and “Can you help […]

The post You Dream It and We’ll Make it first appeared on diaCRITICS.

]]> Dancing in the Rain https://diacritics.org/2026/05/dancing-in-the-rain/ Tue, 26 May 2026 13:44:00 +0000 https://diacritics.org/?p=63380 Two little girls danced outside, trading their afternoon baths for a Saigon shower. Slick warm droplets slithered down their bodies. They wore nothing but their cotton panties. Their bodies, blooming, were not yet a source of shame. They are not embarrassed. They are not afraid. Go on and play, their mother said. Go on, be […]

The post Dancing in the Rain first appeared on diaCRITICS.

]]> Parallel Universe Theory https://diacritics.org/2026/05/parallel-universe-theory/ Tue, 19 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://diacritics.org/?p=63372 i feel guilty because in thistimeline i am living someone else’sdream and/or/but wasn’t it my dream, too? wasn’t it my dream first, lungs fillingwith water and/or/but air, there’s a point in the ocean thatis as far as anyone can get to beingaway from anywhere, or anyone, it’s said to be farthest from anywhere,farther than space, […]

The post Parallel Universe Theory first appeared on diaCRITICS.

]]> The Middle Distance https://diacritics.org/2026/05/the-middle-distance-claudia-borchers/ Tue, 05 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://diacritics.org/?p=63276 The back building on Bizetstrasse in Weissensee, Berlin, still bears the imprint of the Berlin I have known for three decades—improvised, subsidized, and now slowly disappearing. Built around the turn of the last century, the long red-brick factory later housed an East German lightbulb plant, and, after the Wall fell, was purchased and converted with […]

The post The Middle Distance first appeared on diaCRITICS.

]]> Mì gói lá bồ đề https://diacritics.org/2026/04/mi-goi-la-bo-de/ Tue, 28 Apr 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://diacritics.org/?p=63251 On a humid morning in 1997 in the small town of Hồng Ngự on the border of southern Vietnam and Cambodia, a band of smiling children in red handkerchiefs walked around a frenzied school yard with empty condensed milk cans in their hands. I was still in second grade, and we had just finished our […]

The post Mì gói lá bồ đề first appeared on diaCRITICS.

]]> Tri Nhan 004: One of the Lucky Ones https://diacritics.org/2026/04/tri-nhan-004-one-of-the-lucky-ones/ Tue, 21 Apr 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://diacritics.org/?p=63234 Editor’s note: This poem is best viewed on desktop. Mylo Lam was born in Vietnam and currently lives in Los Angeles. He and his family are refugees from Cambodia. Mylo’s work has been published in The Margins, Beloit Poetry Journal, Nightboat Books, Mānoa, and elsewhere. His multimedia work won Palette Poetry’s Brush & Lyre Prize, his poetry […]

The post Tri Nhan 004: One of the Lucky Ones first appeared on diaCRITICS.

]]> Jackfruit https://diacritics.org/2026/04/jackfruit/ Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://diacritics.org/?p=63208 Jackfruit sizzle like fleshcarried through thecurves of your mouth / Mẹ’s voice wrapped in bare hands_______spilling seeds / an extension – from one land_______and an accent mark to another_______about our names giving way and thenreceding_______from Thuylinh to Thuy_______and the nước that never quenches thirstbecause it’s never enough and only separates_______this line between_______what I know of […]

The post Jackfruit first appeared on diaCRITICS.

]]> Cancer Took My Mother & Food Was Her Love Language https://diacritics.org/2026/03/cancer-took-my-mother-food-was-her-love-language/ Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://diacritics.org/?p=62950 Paired With: Bún Bò Huế & the Taste of EnoughFor When You Need to Feed a VillagePlay Song: “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson Amuse-Bouche: The Hunger That Never Leaves Hunger isn’t just about food.It’s about what we’ve been denied—what we crave yet never quite satisfy. My mother answered hunger the only way she knew […]

The post Cancer Took My Mother & Food Was Her Love Language first appeared on diaCRITICS.

]]> Mothernoia https://diacritics.org/2026/03/mothernoia/ Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://diacritics.org/?p=62959 I am haunted by the quiet suspicion that the woman before me is devising my murder. At the moment, we’ve resorted to a game of silence. But she is cunning, calculated, waiting with the prowess of a snake, for when I should inevitably misstep, eager. And when a rock is lodged sharply in the tender […]

The post Mothernoia first appeared on diaCRITICS.

]]> A Broker in Madness https://diacritics.org/2026/03/a-broker-in-madness/ Tue, 10 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://diacritics.org/?p=62936 In order to find a new musical language and new forms for songs, I had to deny the official environment of the Vietnamese Government. My goals are: Break the prejudices about musical aesthetic; Mock the taboo in the language of music; My attitude is not to compromise in any way. – Composer Ngọc Đại, Artist […]

The post A Broker in Madness first appeared on diaCRITICS.

]]>