E.M. Tran Reclaiming Vietnamese Heritage in Debut Novel

Daughters of the New Year is E.M Tran’s debut novel, inspired by her need to reclaim her Vietnamese heritage. The story takes us to the high school classrooms of New Orleans, to Saigon beauty pageants, to twentieth century rubber plantations. We are introduced to three sisters who have lived their lives in the silence of their parent’s Vietnamese diaspora. A language barrier divides them even further. A shift in the second part of the book takes us back to their mother’s life in Saigon, and then back even further down the ancestry line, allowing us to witness how the past affected the present day characters.