Celebrating the 25th anniversary of its publication, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network is proud to release a newly updated version of Watermark, the seminal anthology of Vietnamese American literature. Contextualized by a new foreword from Isabelle Thuy Pelaud and seasoned with new voices, Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose, 25th Anniversary Edition takes its place as a generational work of eclectic and essential voices.
Edited by Barbara Tran, Monique Truong, and Luu Truong Khoi, this updated edition of Watermark continues to elevate Vietnamese American literature, whose renaissance it ushered in upon its first publication. Again, some of the most innovative contemporary Vietnamese American writers, such as Linh Dinh, Andrew Lam, Bich Minh Nguyen, and Dao Strom, explore thematic and stylistic territory previously overlooked in other collections, which have traditionally focused on war. New voices such as Anvi Hoàng, Vinh Nguyen, and Vi Khi Nao are included in this new edition, raising the number of pieces from forty to fifty-two.
Watermark lifts all constraints, leaving the works to reset the boundaries for themselves. And they do—using poetry, fiction, and experimental forms to venture further into the fringes of the Vietnamese American psyche. A work equal measures foundational and pathbreaking, now available again for a new generation of readers—an essential collection not to be missed.
