ÁCCENTED

Evyn Le Espiritu Gandhi, Asian American Studies professor, and Cathy Linh Che, writer and multidisciplinary artist, converse with Viet Thanh Nguyen.

ABOUT THE GUESTS:
Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi is an associate professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (Tovaangar). Dr. Gandhi’s first book, Archipelago of Resettlement: Vietnamese Refugee Settlers and Decolonization across Guam and Israel-Palestine (University of California Press, 2022), was awarded the 2025 ACLS Open Access Book Prize in History. She is the co-editor with Vinh Nguyen of The Routledge Handbook of Refugee Narratives (Routledge, 2023). She is currently working on a second book project which revisits Gramsci’s “southern question” by constellating the southern spaces of South Korea, South Vietnam, and the US South during the Cold War and its afterlives.
Cathy Linh Che is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Becoming Ghost (Washington Square Press, 2025), a Finalist for the National Book Award, Split (Alice James Books) and co-author of An Asian American A to Z: a Children’s Guide to Our History (Haymarket Books). Her video installation Appocalips is an Open Call commission with The Shed, and her film We Were the Scenery was shortlisted for an Academy Award and won the Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction at the Sundance Film Festival. She teaches as Core Faculty in Poetry at the low residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Antioch University in Los Angeles and works as Executive Director at Kundiman. She lives in New York City.

Writer and illustrator Thi Bui and writer Vu Tran converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.

ABOUT THE GUESTS
Thi Bui is a writer and artist from Việt Nam, California, and New York, now planting roots in New Orleans. Best known for her graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, which tells the story of her family amidst Việt Nam's struggles for independence, she has also been a longtime educator in public high schools, a professor of comics, a public speaker, an organizer and artist-activist, an ambivalent sculptor and puppeteer, a fledgling screenwriter, and an award-winning illustrator of children’s books and comics journalism.

Vu Tran is the author of Dragonfish, a NYT Notable Book, and a forthcoming novel, Your Origins. His writing has also appeared in the O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly, and McSweeney’s, among other publications. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award and fellowships from the NEA, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Bread Loaf. Born in Saigon and raised in Oklahoma, Vu received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and his PhD from the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas. He teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Chicago, where he is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Arts and director of undergraduate studies.

Filmmaker Bao Nguyen converses with Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pullitzer prize-winning writer.

ABOUT THE GUEST
Bao Nguyen is an Emmy- and Grammy-nominated Vietnamese American filmmaker whose work explores memory and myth. His films have premiered at major festivals including Sundance, Cannes, and Telluride, and he directed Be Water, ESPN’s most-watched 30 for 30, and The Greatest Night in Pop, Netflix’s number one English-language film in its debut week and a multi-Emmy, Critics Choice, PGA, and Grammy nominee. His latest film, The Stringer (Sundance 2025), premiered on Netflix on November 28th. A partner at EAST Films and a Gold House A100 and BAFTA Breakthrough honoree, he recently joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Award-winning writer Ocean Vuong converses with Pulitzer Prize-winning host Viet Thanh Nguyen.

ABOUT THE GUEST
Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time Is a Mother, as well as the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the American Book Award, he used to work as a fast-food server, which inspired The Emperor of Gladness. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently splits his time between Northampton, Massachusetts, and New York City.

Writers Aimee Phan and Christina Vo converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen in this special live episode, in partnership with KALW.

ABOUT THE GUESTS
Aimee Phan was born and raised in Orange County, California. She is the author of two books for adults, We Should Never Meet: Stories and the novel The Reeducation of Cherry Truong. Her most recent book is The Lost Queen, the first book in a young adult fantasy duology. She has received fellowships and residencies from the NEA, MacDowell Colony, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, Djerassi and Hedgebrook. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Time, USA Today and CNN.com among other publications. 
Christina Vo is the author of My Vietnam, Your Vietnam and The Veil Between Two Worlds. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Drawing from her Vietnamese American heritage and a life lived across cultures, her work explores identity, belonging, inherited trauma, and emotional transformation.