This is the compelling personal narrative of Jade Ngoc Quang Huynh, who was born in South Vietnam in 1958. He survived the war in Vietnam to become a university student in 1974. But because the Hanoi government policy was to persecute writers, intellectuals, and any suspected enemies of the state, Huynh was sent to a labor camp. South Wind Changing tells the riveting story of this early existence, his escape from Vietnam, his time in a Thai refugee camp, and the eventual new life he was able to carve out for himself in the United States. Here, where he first learned English while working at McDonalds, he was finally able to complete his education. In this well-written Asian-American memoir we encounter a remarkable life of struggle and survival, dreams and determination, imperialism and immigration, and other key twentieth-century experiences.
"A Vietnames refugee to the U.S. who was a young student in Saigon when the war ended tells movingly of surviving a Marxist re-education camp and escaping Vietnam by boat. His adventures in the U.S. included earning a bachelor's degree at Bennington College and learning the rhythms of English well enough to write this haunting, oddly pastoral memoir."—Time
"South Wind Changing testifies to the bewildered anguish of the victims of war and to Huynh's survival and escape to America. In his search for a new place in this new world (so intimately involved with the destruction of the old), Huynh encounters discrimination, indifference, and—at last—kindness and a second chance. The end of his story is this story by the fine writer that Huynh has become."—Elle
