Maika Nguyen, “Writing Home”

In April 2025, Maika Nguyen successfully defended her thesis at the University College Dublin, titled ‘Writing Home: Haiti and Vietnam in the Autofiction of Dany Laferrière and Anna Moï’. Closely comparing the autofictional texts of Vietnamese writer Anna Moï (Nostalgie de la rizière, L’Année du Cochon de Feu and Le Pays sans nom) alongside those (Pays sans chapeau and L’ Énigme du retour) of Dany Laferrière, from Haïti, the thesis argues that these autofictional narratives call into question the position of the returnee narrator in the homeland. In doing so, they redraw understandings of self and other, emphasising the continuously changing relationship between 
displacement, mobility and home.

Félicitations, Maika!

Photo: From left to right: Associate Professor Sharae Deckard (UCD English), Drapers Professor Charles Forsdick (University of Cambridge), Maika Nguyen, Professor Mary Gallagher and Associate Professor Emer O’Beirne (UCD SLCL