My most anticipated short fiction anthology of the year, A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, is out this week. As you might remember, I am hosting a reading challenge in conjunction with LitCelebrAsian to celebrate all of the authors involved in the anthology. It is my absolute privilege to share an interview I did with Aliette de Bodard today. She contributed a retelling of Tấm and Cám, a Vietnamese fairy tale I grew up hearing.

Interview

1) What drew you to the story of Tấm and Cám, why did you want to retell this tale in particular?

For me, Tấm Cám is such a seminal Vietnamese tale, and it had a huge impact on me as a child–not so much the first part, which didn’t feel very distinct from Cinderella at the time, but the series of Tấm’s deaths and reincarnations and how she always struggles to come back to her husband no matter what shape she’s in. At the same time the familial dynamics always bothered me (as in many fairytales) because they pitted sister against sister (and not in a particularly charming way since the darker-skinned sister is the evil one). So when I retold it, I wanted to change this; and rather than have the story be about a wife striving to reach her husband, be about a sisters trying to reach each other and find a life together! Continue reading “Author Interview: Aliette de Bodard for #1KBE” →