We Should Never Meet: Stories

"Phan accomplishes what only a true artist can: she gives voice to the voiceless and makes them speak for us all. This is a thrillingly important book." --Robert Olen Butler

Powerful and stunning, these interlinked stories involve the people and events of Operation Babylift, the evacuation of 2,000 Vietnamese orphans just weeks before the fall of Saigon. Four of the stories follow one orphan's journey from different viewpoints in Saigon in 1975. The other four, set in present-day "Little Saigon" in Orange County, CA, chronicle the varying lives of four orphans, including a model student and a gang member who preys on Vietnamese families. This is an exciting debut of a major new writer.