Becoming Ghost, Cathy Linh Che
Becoming Ghost, Cathy Linh Che
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Becoming Ghost
Poetry

Author: Cathy Linh Che

Narrator: Cathy Linh Che

Unabridged: 1 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/29/2025

Categories: Fiction, Poetry

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

2025 National Book Award Finalist
Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Finalist

2026 APALA Literature Awards - Asian American Poetry Winner
Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry of 2024 and 2025
Electric Literature’s Best Poetry Collections, 2025
NPR’s Books We Love 2025
2026 ALA RUSA Notable Poetry List

The long-awaited sophomore poetry collection by award-winning writer Cathy Linh Che, on familial estrangement, the Vietnam War, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.

The follow-up to her acclaimed poetry debut Split, Becoming Ghost documents Cathy Linh Che’s parents’ experiences as refugees who escaped the Vietnam War and then were cast as extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now, placing them at the margins of their own story. The poetry collection uses persona, speculation, and the golden shovel form as a means of moving Vietnamese voices from the periphery to the center. The speaker’s disownment raises questions about the challenges of using parents as poetic subjects, telling familial stories to a broader public, and the meaning of forgiveness.

About Cathy Linh Che

Cathy Linh Che is a Vietnamese American writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Split, winner of the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America and the Best Poetry Book Award from the Association of Asian American Studies, An Asian American A to Z: A Children’s Guide to Our History, and Becoming Ghost. Her writing has been published in The New Republic, The Nation, and McSweeney’s and she has received awards from MacDowell, Bread Loaf, Tin House, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She currently lives in New York City.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Mai on April 25, 2025

National Poetry Month 2025 #3 Vietnam Book and Reading Culture Day 2025 #5 I. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ We are not your entertainment. Stop using us. The misogyny, while not surprising, is triggering. Here for the Steven Yeun mention 🥵 You'd become less than a feeling, the way every lover I've known no longer hurts me. I'm so s......more

Goodreads review by Kate on April 24, 2025

Thank you to Atria Books for the gifted advanced copy. “We were cast into a film about our own apocalypse.” The ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ poems broke me. The interweaving of zombie narratives with the Apocalypse Now filming experience for being cast as extras in a film after living through the Vietnam War wa......more

Goodreads review by Briann on March 03, 2025

Analyzing and interpreting poems has never been my forte. Therefore, I struggled with a lot of these poems and the switching of narrators and perspectives. Despite how I struggled with some of these poems, I do find them beautiful and meaningful. I especially appreciate the author’s interweaving of......more

Goodreads review by Books Amongst Friends on February 06, 2025

4 I was just having a conversation with a friend about the historical elements behind pain and suffering being used for entertainment. Coming across this collection, I felt like it not only tackled that subject but added extra layers to the conversation. This book felt deeply personal—there’s someth......more

Goodreads review by Izzie on March 08, 2025

So glad I had the opportunity to read this collection of poetry. I have been long tired of Asian American poets/authors who tell the same "outsider/insider/perpetual foreigner" narrative without additional critical thought on (U.S.) imperialism and ways its affects all peoples globally. I was very i......more

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