Andrew X. Pham dreamed of becoming a writer. Born in Vietnam and raised in California, he held technical jobs at United Airlines-and always carried a letter of resignation in his briefcase. His father had been a POW of the Vietcong; his family came to America as "boat people."

When his sister committed suicide, Andrew decided to quit his job, old all of his possessions and embarked on a year-long bicycle journey that took him through the Mexican desert, where he was treated as a bueno hermano, a "good brother"; around a thousand-mile loop from Narita to Kyoto in Japan; and, after five months and 2,357 miles, to Saigon, where he finds "nothing familiar in the bombed-out darkness."

In Mexico he's treated kindly as a Vietnamito, though he shouts, "I'm American, Vietnamese American!" In Vietnam, he's taken for Japanese or Korean by his countrymen; and in the United States he's considered anything but American.

A vibrant, picaresque memoir written with narrative flair and a wonderful, eye-opening sense of adventure, Catfish and Mandala is an unforgettable search for cultural identity.

Thank you so much for this wishlist book!!

Wow! This was so much more than a mere "travelling around by bike" -book that I kind of expected when starting to read it. A fascinating life story and a brilliant account of (cultural) differencies between Vietnamese and 'viet-kieu', Vietnamese living abroad. I think I'm kind of stupefied by this book and don't really know what to say, expect that it was a great read and certainly not one of those books that you'll forget in two days!

Released at the Tampere Convention.

Thank you so much for recommending this book, sakirmo. I am looking forward to reading it, just have to make sure that I have space enough in my bag... 😊