Dean Echenberg Lecture: Deborah Paredez and Hai-Dang Phan

Join the Ransom Center for our annual Dean F. Echenberg War Poetry Reading Series. This year, the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, we are hosting poets Deborah Paredez and Hai-Dang Phang, who will read from poetry collections providing contrasting perspectives of the Vietnam War. Paredez’s Year of the Dog (2020) tells her story as a Latina daughter of a Vietnam War veteran, and Hai-Dang Phan’s Reenactments (2019) grapples with the legacy of the war from the vantage point of the son of Vietnamese refugees. Book sales, a reception, and a signing will follow the program. Books will be sold onsite by Alienated Majesty Books.

Deborah Paredez is an Associate Professor and Chair of the creative writing program at Columbia University. She is the author of four books: the critical memoir American Diva: Extraordinary, Unruly, Fabulous (Norton, 2024), the scholarly study Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory (Duke, 2009), and the poetry collections This Side of Skin (Wings Press, 2002) and Year of the Dog (BOA Editions, 2020), winner of the 2020 Writers' League of Texas Poetry Book Award and a New York Times New and Notable Book. Her poetry and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Boston Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of CantoMundo, a national organization dedicated to Latinx poets and poetry.

Hai-Dang Phan, a poet, translator, and essayist, is the author of the poetry collection (Sarabande, 2019) and the translator of Phan Nhiên Hạo’s selected volume of poems, (The Song Cave, 2020). His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Best American Poetry 2016, New England Review, The New Yorker, Poetry, Asymptote, Bennington Review, and The Baffler. Phan is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the American Literary Translators Association. An avid birdwatcher, he is currently working on a book of literary nonfiction called Operation Laughingthrush, about the entangled life histories of humans and birds, the conservation ethic in Vietnam, and a Vietnamese American writer’s search for belonging. Phan has taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is currently an Associate Professor of English at Grinnell College.

Photo of Deborah Paredez by Sammy Tunis

Please have your reservation confirmation ready upon entering. A reservation does not guarantee a seat. Line forms upon arrival of the first patron, and doors open 30 minutes in advance. Doors to our theater will open approximately 30 minutes before the event begins. No food or beverages are allowed inside our theater or gallery space.

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