Look Who's Coming: Dana Sachs

AT A GLANCE

KNOWN FOR | Her book, "If You Lived Here," set in Vietnam and Wilmington.

SOUTHERN ROOTS | This Jewish girl hails from Memphis, Tenn., received a master of fine arts from UNC-Wilmington, and teaches journalism and Vietnamese literature at UNC-W.

Sachs spoke with staff writer Ellen Sung ahead of appearances in Chapel Hill and Durham.

Q - Your story centers on international adoption from Asia. What attracted you to this story?

A - I think it's two things. One is that as someone who's been writing about Vietnam for 15 years and going back and forth and living there for a while, I'm interested in the connection of cultures and the ways in which different cultures come in contact with each other. Adoption is so intimate, the way you actually take a child from one culture and bring it into your world.

I started to write the book at a time when I was thinking about having children. Adoption appealed to me in certain ways, but it was something I thought I would do if I couldn't have children. But I sort of fantasized about it ... what it would be like to bring home a child from another culture.

Q - You have two voices narrating this book: a white woman from Wilmington and a Vietnamese woman who fled to America during the Vietnam conflict. Was it difficult to write in these very culturally different voices?

A - It was most difficult to sort of start to understand the characters. Once I understood who they were, the voices were not that hard to get on the page.

Surprisingly, for me, the voice of Mai, the Vietnamese character, came to me much more easily than the character of Shelley. I'm not sure what that says.

Q - Did you start developing her first?

A - No, I started developing them together because I thought of it as the story of a friendship.

This comes back to the idea of culture. I was interested in the relationships I had developed with my Vietnamese friends [15 years ago]. I kept thinking about, "We're able to be friends now," and 20 years ago we were on opposite sides of the war and I was watching it on TV.

Q - You've been going to Vietnam since 1990 and you're often asked about cultural changes there. What are some of the biggest changes you've seen?

A - The obvious change people always notice is, "Oh, there's so much more traffic and noise and motorbikes." And they're true.

The things that I notice are more on the subtle level. The way people spend their time has changed. People are much, much busier than they used to be. My friends there, their lives are a lot more like mine in America, with balancing work and family and other commitments. Life has sped up so much, which has affected social relationships and family relationships.

Q - By all accounts, Vietnam has become more culturally cosmopolitan. Why is that?

A - They've had so much influence from other societies coming in over the years. I just think for a period when Vietnam was closed down, they didn't have that luxury. It's quite natural now for them to be very interested in the outside world. That kind of global sophistication represents an economic change, of course.

Q - In a review of your memoir, "The House on Dream Street," one author wrote, "She refuses to allow the war to define them." Is that a goal of your work, to show American audiences other sides to Vietnam?

A - It definitely was when I first started out. I felt like there had been so little written about Vietnam and we were limited to this understanding of the country in terms of the war. That was definitely something that I set out to do.

Those arguments have kind of infiltrated American culture now. My students here, they don't necessarily think of Vietnam in terms of the war. They might think of it as places that people want to travel. ... I think times have changed and I don't think it's as pressing.

Q - Your local appearances were organized by the Viet Nam Literature Project, which is based in Hillsborough. Is it a coincidence that it's in North Carolina?

A - I think it's somewhat coincidence that a lot of us have ended up here. There's a translator, John Balaban, who is a professor at N.C. State, there's a scholar at UNC-Chapel Hill named Eric Henry, and then there are some people at Duke who do work on Vietnam. I think it's that there tends to be an intellectual community in North Carolina in general.

I came here from San Francisco, but it was a little bit like kicking and screaming. I felt like it was the boonies, but then Dan [Duffy, founder of the Vietnam literature project] came a year later. It's been kind of a relief that there is something here; it's a little hub.

DETAILS

WHAT Dana Sachs.

IN CHAPEL HILL 3 p.m., Tuesday, Donovan Lounge, Greenlaw Hall, UNC-CH. 962-5481, www.vietnamlit.org.

IN DURHAM 7 p.m. Wednesday, Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth St. With Dan Duffy, director of Viet Nam Literature Project. 286-2700, www.regbook.com.