Acclaimed Vietnamese Author Lan Cao To Speak
at Montgomery College
May 3 Lecture, Reading to Focus on Cultural Clashes When East Meets West

Critically acclaimed Vietnamese author Lan Cao will give a lecture and read from her novel, Monkey Bridge, on Thursday, May 3, 12 noon, at Montgomery College’s Rockville Campus. The event will be held in Room 212 of the Campus Tower.

Lan Cao left Vietnam during the fall of Saigon in 1975 to settle in Northern Virginia. A graduate of Mount Holyoke and Yale Law School and a 1991 Ford Foundation Scholar, she teaches international trade and business, economic development, and corporate law at William and Mary Law School.

Monkey Bridge (Viking 1997) has been critically acclaimed as the first novel about the war and the immigrant experience by a Vietnamese-American and hailed as "an impressive debut" by The New York Times. While the war is central to the narrative, Cao’s lyrical prose also depicts the country’s landscape, culture, folklore, and history. Unwilling to be typecast, her novel-in-progress, Chinaman’s Chance, is about a boat full of illegal immigrants from China that beached off the coast of New York in 1993.

The event is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. To register to attend, please contact Gail Forman, director of Montgomery College’s International Education Program, at 240-567-7443.