Announcing the Common Read for Our Study Abroad to Vietnam: The Mountains Sing

by Kathleen Driskell, Chair, Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing

In less than two months, Naslund-Mann students and alumni will join Katy Yocom and me as we travel to Vietnam September 19 – 28. There have been so many wonderful novels, memoirs, and collections of poetry focused on Vietnam, it’s been difficult to narrow my choices to one book. I’ve finally settled on The Mountains Sing, a novel Administrative Director Karen Mann suggested to me some weeks ago. Karen thought it would be a good choice for our Vietnam trip and as usual Karen is right. The Mountains Sing is a marvelous read but is, I think, especially suited for introducing outsiders to the recent history, culture, and landscape of Vietnam. I hope you’ll be moved by reading about the impact French occupation had on Vietnam as well as the more contemporary American war there. The Mountains Sing is a debut novel in English by poet Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, who was born and raised in Vietnam and has been awarded many honors, including being chosen as a New York Times Editors’ Choice Selection. The book will be a perfect companion for all traveling through Vietnam.

If all will read the book in advance of landing in Ho Chi Minh City, we’ll find time together to discuss The Mountains Sing, but I’m also sure we’ll refer to the novel again and again as we travel through the cities and countryside of Vietnam.

Of additional interest to Vietnam travelers might be this video in which the audio book narrator Quyen Ngo pronounces the names of characters in the novel and describes what each name means.

Also, visit for Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s web site if you’d like to know more about her.

And Katy found this interesting New York Times article “Read Your Way Through Hanoi,” providing reading recommendations for books focused on Vietnam, and which just happens to be written by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai.

I so look forward to being with you soon. I know we’ll have a wonderful time and that our journey will be enriched by The Mountains Sing. Enjoy reading and anticipating our time together in in Vietnam.

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Kathleen Driskell, Chair of Spalding University’s Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing and Professor of Creative Writing, is an award-winning poet and essayist. In April 2025, Governor Andy Beshear appointed her as the 2025-26 Kentucky Poet Laureate. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, River Teeth, Appalachian Review, Southern Review, Shenandoah, Rattle, and other magazines. She is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Goat-Footed Gods (Carnegie Mellon University Press), The Vine Temple (Carnegie Mellon), and Next Door to the Dead (University Press of Kentucky), winner of the Judy Gaines Young Book Award. Her Seed Across Snow (Red Hen Press) was named a Poetry Foundation Bestseller. She served as Chair of the Board of Directors of AWP, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, from 2019 to 2022.