On December 8, 2026, Dr. Phong Nguyen’s sixth book The Three Daughters of Annam will be released for purchase online and from local bookstores.
The book will follow three women, bound by friendship, who experience their adolescence under the French occupation of Việt Nam. As they age and diverge into their individual lives and romances, and move across the globe, the strings of their bonds continue to connect them to each other and their home. “Fate spreads us to unpredictable & unexpected places,” Phong stated in an interview about the novel. “But even when separated by space and time, the ties to Việt Nam never disappear.”
Nguyen found inspiration for the novel from a letter from his grandfather to Nguyen’s father, planting the seeds for a fictional narrative developed by family history. Within the pages of The Three Daughters of Annam, Nguyen tackles the struggles and grief of individuals and families under colonization, and how those under occupation can find the resilience to thrive despite it. Above all else, however, Nguyen attempts to dispel the myth that Vietnamese life and culture is built exclusively on grief. “I want to give the sense of there being more than just tragedy and trauma that’s there for Vietnamese Americans,” Nguyen says.
