From Vietnam to the GDR and into a life of her own. As part of Intercultural Week

‘People like us’ are those whose names nobody here can pronounce properly. Those who, year after year, live in fear that their residence permits will not be renewed. They remember the songs and poems from their old homeland, yet they do not want to go back. Thị Thanh Thảo Trần tells the story of what it means to live in two languages and two countries.

Her parents met on a Vietnamese island. They were poor, but happy together. When an offer came from the GDR, her father decided to go and work there for just a few years.
At the time, he could not yet foresee the consequences this decision would have for his family. His wife and daughter – the novel’s narrator – did not follow him to Germany until years later. There, however, they were not welcomed with open arms. Their arrival increasingly reveals itself to be a fiction, yet going back would feel like a failure.

Thảo Trần was born in Vietnam in 1986 and has lived in Germany since 1999. She studied cultural studies as well as comparative literature and art history. Her collection of short stories *Wo ich herkomme* was shortlisted for the Young Storyteller Award in 2022. In 2024, she received a working grant from the Berlin Senate, which enabled her to complete her first novel. “Menschen wie wir” was published in 2026 by leykam: Verlag.

Supported by the Integration Officer of the Hanseatic and University City of Greifswald.

Free admission