Post-war pain and the spirit of reconciliation in Nguyen Phan Que Mai’s poetry

Abstract

Based on Viet Thanh Nguyen's proposal of “just memory” in the perception of war memories, the article analyzes post-war pain as a prominent inspiration, expressed through many poems in the collection “Tổ quốc gọi tên mình” by poet Nguyen Phan Que Mai. The unique point in the way the poet addresses this topic is the depiction of the pain of war of people from many sides of the war, from Vietnamese civilians to American veterans and their children as well as children from South Vietnam who were displaced before and after the end of the war. These poems have contributed to healing and reconciling the pain of war between Vietnam and the United States, between Vietnamese people with each other in the same historical trauma.