The Eunuch's Daughter & Stories

The short stories in this collection encompass a whole series of settings and scenarios: from modern day to the time of the Emperors; from Vietnam war zones to royal palaces, fishing villages, and crowded riverboats. Each story is a world of its own: a eunuch from the imperial court whose past painfully returns; a modern household with deep-rooted secrets, resentments, and regrets; a mother who faces a very tough choice for her daughter's good; a picture evokes memories and traces unexpected connections between people; a caged myra bird frees its owner of his past, as he hands it into the hands of a delighted little girl; a soldier finds unexpected empathy for an infamous, ruthless camp chief.

"Short, jewel-like chapters, evocative and layered. A beautifully written book."--Roundfire Books

"THE EUNUCH'S DAUGHTER is indeed a beautiful book: extraordinary writing, interesting characters and a fascinating depiction of Vietnam's history."--Washington Writers' Publishing House

"It is a remarkable story--ambitious, sweeping, and very beautiful. A gorgeous story as complex as Russian nesting dolls. An incredibly beautiful and compelling read."--Alexis Gargagliano (former Scribner's Editor)

"Khanh Ha's latest work, THE EUNUCH'S DAUGHTER & STORIES may be his best effort to date. He's a writer of rare talent able to plumb the depth of the human heart in the smooth rhythm of a meandering river. Ha steers the reader through the currents of history, heartbreak, and human dignity like a master riverboat captain. The writing is so smooth, so fluid, that the audience, entranced by the passing landscape, will not realize there is someone steering the boat. The visual is so vivid that the mystery and beauty of existence ripple up from the deepest of depths. Ha's work always put me in mind of Faulkner in that it has a mythic quality that only the best writers are able to capture. At the same time, it is--at times brutally--realistic. As in all of Ha's work, there is some thing redemptive at play, something hopeful in tragedy, something dignified in sorrow. In short, these stories are beautiful. I can't recommend THE EUNUCH'S DAUGHTER & STORIES highly enough."--John Gist, author of The Yewberry Way: Book I Prayer, Lizard Dreaming of Birds, and Crowheart

Fiction. Asian & Asian American Studies.