“After I learned about Koh Kra I couldn’t sleep for three days,” declares the narrator of Cecile Pin’s moving and meticulously researched debut novel. The Koh Kra tragedy occurred in 1979 on a 100-acre swatch of land off the coast of southern Thailand. There, a gang of fishermen intercepted a boat of Vietnamese refugees. Over the course of 22 nightmarish days the women and girls were repeatedly raped, while the men and boys were robbed, murdered or left to die at sea. The Koh Kra massacre is one of the real-life ordeals foregrounded in Pin’s heartfelt and informative portrayal of the Vietnamese refugee experience and the psychological and emotional tolls of survival and cultural assimilation.
The book opens three years after the American troops have withdrawn, with Vietnam in a state of political and economic turmoil. The mass exodus following the Vietnam war resulted in an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 dying at sea, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Wandering Souls examines the human cost of large-scale tragedy through the story of 16-year-old Anh, her 13-year-old brother Minh and their 10-year-old brother Thanh, who are separated from their parents and four younger siblings when the family attempts to make the perilous journey to Hong Kong on two separate boats. Tragically, only Anh, Minh and Thanh arrive at their destination.
