Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

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Vu Thi Van Anh

A close-up of Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai.

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

media release: Award-winning Vietnamese poet and author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai will be in conversation with Norman Stockwell, publisher of The Progressive in a free public event to commemorates the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.

Born during the Vietnam War and raised in Vietnam, Dr. Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai witnessed the war's devastation and is committed to writing for Peace. For many years, she has researched about the war’s impact and documented untold stories in her global best-selling novels, The Mountains Sing and Dust Child, as well as her latest poetry collection, The Color of Peace. 

During the event, Quế Mai will perform her poetry, and talk about behind-the-scenes stories relating to her books. She will highlight the long-lasting impact of war as well as the pathway to peace. She will present her personal experiences relating to the war and what she learned from translating the work of American veteran writers into Vietnamese. She will also present a Vietnam beyond the war, and will include stories of Vietnamese poetry, Vietnamese proverbs, and Vietnamese ways of life. Following the event, the author will sign copies of her novels, The Mountains Sing and Dust Child, as well as her new collection The Color of Peace. 100% proceeds from her latest book, The Color of Peace will be donated to organizations that support victims of Agent Orange and remove unexploded bombs left over by the war in Vietnam (PeaceTrees Vietnam, the D.O.V.E fund, and RENEW). 

Born and raised in Việt Nam, Quế Mai was awarded Runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the first and only U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace. Her thirteen books, which include the novels The Mountains Sing and Dust Child, and the poetry collection The Color of Peace, vividly documents Vietnamese history as well as Việt Nam as a country with more than 4,000 years of history and culture. Her writing has been translated into more than twenty-five languages and has received the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, the International Book Award, the BookBrowse Best Debut Award, the Lannan Literary Fellowship in Fiction. She is the Peace Ambassador for PeaceTrees Vietnam, an organization which removes unexploded bombs in Vietnam as well as an ambassador for Room to Read, an organization that provides free libraries in remote areas. She has a PhD in creative writing from Lancaster University in the U.K. Quế Mai was named by Forbes Vietnam as one of 20 inspiring Vietnamese women of 2021. In 2025, she was featured by Top 10 of Asia Magazine as one of “Top 10 Novelists Shaping the Literary Scene in Southeast Asia”. For more information: www.nguyenphanquemai.com

Norman Stockwell is publisher of The Progressive a 116-year-old Madison-based national magazine and website. He has worked as a journalist for more than four decades in the United States and internationally, reporting twice from Vietnam for several outlets. He is co-editor of the 2015 book Rebel Reporting.

Leopold’s Books Bar Caffè is located at 1301 Regent Street in Madison • 608-256-7709. There is no need to register for this event. Everyone is welcome. Don’t miss this chance to listen to one of Vietnam’s leading voices in contemporary literature.