Author Wendy Nhu-Nguyen Duong (pen name Ng.Uyen Nicole), and Her 2025 Bilingual (English-Vietnamese) Poetry Series:

 

The resilience and triumphs of Vietnamese refugees in the West stem from their pain and suffering, alongside their deep appreciation for survival and record of success. Now, almost half a century after the end of the Vietnam War, VietFugue (and our U.S. co-publisher) are proud to publish the bilingual poetry and visual art of former judge, former law professor and novelist Wendy (Wyn) N.N.Duong.

 

The title of the Series, Vietnamese America: Voices Forgotten, speaks our mission: the presentation of voices that may be at risk as forgotten, because painful chapters of history have been closed or purposely erased. The Series, as reflected in Ms. Duong's artbook collections, presents the chronicles of Vietnamese American history and culture through the lens of poetry.

 

We believe that this Series is the first of its kind, and that our author has contributed, not only to the depiction of a universal human experience, but also to the variety of poetic forms — her prose poetry, free verses, and poetic narratives tell tales resembling short stories, while incorporating Vietnamese literary references and heritage. In that sense, our poet takes on the role of a cultural anthropologist.

 

The author herself is a “rare species,” just like the “rare books” we hope to publish. A self-made career woman, she was educated in three systems: French (elementary), Vietnamese (secondary), and American (college). A scholar well-versed in both languages and cultures: Vietnam and America, she spent her life combining law and art. She was among the rare South Vietnamese pioneer women who entered journalism, the executive rank, and corporate America in the late 1970s and 1980s, and became the first Vietnam-born woman in many competitive national and international workplaces in the U.S. and abroad (Wilmer Cutler & Pickering (Wilmer Hale), U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, Weil Gotshal & Manges, Baker & McKenzie, Locke Liddell Sapp (Locke Lord), and Mobil Corporation (now Exxon-Mobil).. Unorthodoxly, she withdrew from public service opportunities (her status as semi-finalist representing the Southwestern States in the 1991 White House Fellowship competition).  She chose instead to teach and write in a law professorship, ultimately resigning from her law career to undertake parental caregiving as the first-born child, for the sake of her aging and ailing parents.  The author currently resides in Houston, Texas, and writes full time.  

 

“In my life, many times I had to do what I had to do, because of callings at a particular time. Career pursuits were either the result of too many choices, yet I had no mentorship from my own ethnic community because I was the first,” she said.