Author Spotlight: Trinity Nguyen on Her Debut Novel “A Bánh Mì For Two”
“This is so controversial, but I love bittermelon,” Trinity Nguyen told EnVi over Zoom. “And I really love stuffed bittermelon soup.”
Nguyen is the author of the indie bestselling novel A Bánh Mì For Two, which hit the shelves on August 20. She explained how she first ate bittermelon dishes out of spite and found solace in them over time. Nguyen then went on to include stuffed bittermelon soup in her novel as a nod to one of her comfort foods. Later, one of her good friends highlighted the meaning of bittermelon, and Nguyen realized how the dish is also a metaphor for the grief her character, Lan, experiences.
In Vietnamese, bittermelon is khổ qua, and its rough translation is “grief passing,” which Nguyen described as “so fitting” for Lan. “She is remembering her father and feels this overwhelming grief,” the author explained. But when Lan eats bittermelon soup, it symbolizes how her grief will soon pass.
Food plays a vital role in A Bánh Mì For Two, and it is what unites the main characters, Vivi and Lan. The novel follows Vietnamese American Vivi Huynh, who secretly travels to Việt Nam for a study abroad program and is set on learning the family history her mother doesn’t talk about. In Sài Gòn, she runs into Lan, the writer of her favorite food blog, A Bánh Mì For Two. Lan created the blog with her father, but since his passing, she struggles to continue writing. Instead, she focuses on helping her mother at their bánh mì stall. When Vivi and Lan’s lives intersect, they decide to help each other. Lan will aid Vivi in piecing together her family history while Vivi will help Lan write again. Told in dual perspective, A Bánh Mì For Two follows Vivi and Lan across Sài Gòn as they unearth their families’ histories all the while bonding over their love for street food — and for each other.
EnVi chatted with Trinity Nguyen about her debut novel A Bánh Mì For Two, Vietnamese identity, her book blogging experience, and how food has the power to unite us all.
Food As a Common Connector
When readers first meet Lan, she’s struggling to write a blog post for A Bánh Mì For Two. But nothing she writes sounds — nor feels — right. A few pages later, readers meet Vivi, who has just landed in Việt Nam for a study abroad trip (though, technically, she lied to her immigrant parents that she was going to Singapore not Việt Nam). Over the course of the 224-page novel, the two girls connect over food, memories, and their families’ histories.
Nguyen has many food-related memories herself. As she told EnVi, her earliest memories tend to revolve around the street food in Sài Gòn. Born and raised in the southern Vietnamese city, Nguyen lived there until she was in fourth grade and immigrated to the United States. (Now, she resides in California.) However, Sài Gòn clearly still holds a special place in her heart.
“I remember my dad would give me a couple of bills to buy street food after school,” she said with a small smile. “What do you want?” was often the question her dad would ask her, as the sky was the limit for the type of food Nguyen could snack on after a long day at school. There were “so many stalls and vendors just outside [of] the school gates,” she emphasized. Rice rolls, salad, and beyond — Nguyen really could have it all.
“I would just go wild spending my parents money with the street food,” she laughed. “I think [the street food culture] is something that has always been so unique about Việt Nam in general,” Nguyen added. “Because when I immigrated to the United States, that’s not something that’s really a thing. Like, yes, there are night markets. There is street food, technically, but you have to drive to a plaza, you have to drive to an event,” she continued, reflecting on these food memories. “Whereas in Việt Nam, it’s at the tips of your fingers. You can just walk outside and it is there.”
Identity in A BANH MI FOR TWO
Lan’s family runs Bánh Mì 98, a popular bánh mì stall attracting long line-ups of locals and tourists alike. On the side, Lan wrote for her food blog, A Bánh Mì For Two, with her father. What started as a hobby bloomed into a fervent passion for writing. However, since her father’s passing, Lan put the blog on an indefinite hiatus. While she continues to post photos of local food stalls on her social media, she struggles to write and is at a creative impasse with her long-form blog posts.
Similar to Lan, Nguyen also experienced a writer’s block of her own while drafting A Bánh Mì For Two. Her novel examines different Vietnamese experiences, specifically characters born-and-raised in Việt Nam and the Vietnamese American experience. Nguyen explained that “right now in literature, there’s a lot of books about the Asian diaspora,” but she wanted to “also explore [the] people in Asia.” Questions like “How do they look at us?” and “What do they think?” drove her to create Vivi and Lan.
“The Asian diaspora have a lot of feelings about identity, belonging, and the idea of fitting in. I thought it would be so fascinating when Vivi comes to Việt Nam and this is the first time [she] doesn’t feel [othered],” she explained. “Then for Lan, this is all she’s known. She doesn’t understand the feeling of being othered or […] having to constantly question her own identity and where she belongs.”
But while Nguyen “really wanted to [explore] this interesting dynamic,” she also wanted to “handle the themes with care and delicacy,” which threw her into a writer’s block. During this time, she asked herself, “How do I handle this, and how do I handle it right?” Nguyen recalled her editors being brutally honest with her when she found herself “dancing around certain themes” of belonging and identity. They encouraged her to include “these important aspects, because that’s what makes [her] characters Vietnamese, and it makes them who they are.” Empowered by her editors and the support she received, Nguyen dove headfirst into edits to further explore Vivi and Lan’s characters.
As the characters grow as individuals, so does their relationship. Vivi and Lan’s romance was Nguyen’s favorite part to write, but also the most challenging. “Romance is so hard when you have to convince people that these characters have chemistry,” she told EnVi. “But that’s also what made it really fun for me.”
Vivi and Lan are “very different, but together, they’re very similar,” their author added. As Nguyen wrote their blooming romance, she wanted them to “fill each other’s gaps.” From riding motorbikes to eating meals together, she included shared moments that illustrated their chemistry and consonance. “It was so much fun [developing] such a romance,” Nguyen said with a smile. “Even though it was kind of like pulling teeth.” She went on to add that she wanted the romance between Vivi and Lan to also serve as “a symbol [of a] new generation.”
“We’re all Vietnamese despite [coming] from different backgrounds and experiences,” she said. “Let’s find reconciliation and heal.”
Book Blog & the Book Community
Before she wrote Vivi and Lan, however, Nguyen was already carving a space for Vietnamese diaspora stories through her own (book) blog, allegory of words. “I started reading a lot, and I started reading a lot more young adult novels,” she said. However, Nguyen eventually did “[fall] out of the genre.” But, she also pointed to Loan Lee’s young adult novel, A Phở Love Story, as a turning point in her reading journey. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I just have to become the author’s biggest fan.’ So then that’s how we kind of ended up being friends,” she said, while also adding that she basically told Le, “Whatever you write, you need to send me.”
But the story does not end there — it’s very much so ongoing, as a matter of fact. Le is also a Senior Editor at Atria Books, a division of the publisher Simon & Schuster. As a result, Nguyen ended up with a coveted early copy of Carolyn Hyunh’s debut novel, The Fortunes of Jaded Women. (A fellow Vietnamese American author, Hyunh’s first published book made waves in the book world, including being selected as the September 2022 book club pick for Good Morning America.) Essentially, Le said to Nguyen, “I think you would really love this book,” and the rest is history.
“Those two books change[d] everything,” Nguyen emphasized during our conversation. A Phở Love Story and The Fortunes of Jaded Women sparked a realization in Nguyen: “There’s a lot more commercial Vietnamese fiction” out there. The debut author clarified the distinction between “commercial” and “literature” (like nonfiction works and memoirs) in this context. “There’s been a lack of just Vietnamese characters existing in media and fiction,” she noted.
“I want to read more of those,” stressed Nguyen, those stories where Vietnamese characters live their lives, fall in love, eat delicious food — and just exist. “I kind of had that hunger for more representation, and I just really wanted to support Vietnamese diaspora authors in general,” she added. Thus, Nguyen created the Vietnamese Diaspora Shelf on her book blog to carve a space specifically for these stories. “I just started reaching out,” the debut author said. Her mission? “Just giving them a space and [a] platform.”
While Nguyen has been able to speak with a few authors for her blog, her interviews with Loan Le and Michelle Quach, author of Not Here To Be Liked, are particularly good memories. Michelle, in fact, later became one of Nguyen’s mentors when she was looking to publish A Bánh Mì For Two. “She read the first few chapters of A Bánh Mì For Twowhen it was bad and ugly. She read my query package before I sent it out to agents,” remembered Nguyen. “She’s really the reason why I’m also in the industry. It’s so impactful because these people really do give back, and I thought it was so cool finding that community through [my blog] as well.”
Besides community and support, being a book blogger had other unexpected benefits for Nguyen as a writer. “As a book blogger, it…helped me understand how a story is built. I think that it’s always so important to come at writing as a reader versus like a straight writer,” Nguyen noted, too. If you read as a writer, she mentioned, you might yourself “dissecting” the book and thinking about “What makes this book better?” But the Banh Mi For Two author has a different perspective to consider: “Now I’m like, no, let’s dial back. Let’s not do that. Let’s just continue reading for pleasure.” She mused, “I find a lot of joy in doing that still, and I think that’s really helped me overcome burnout.”
For those who are familiar with online book spaces — like bookstagram and book blogging, which Nguyen was (and is still) part of — the communities are tight-knit. Although she isn’t as active in the blog space anymore, Nguyen still has those connections within the community. During our conversation, she chuckled, a bit in awe, “[It’s] also really cool because now they’re receiving PR boxes of my book.”
“It’s just so sweet and moving to see them picking up my book and reading it. It’s like, wow. It’s such a full circle,” Nguyen concluded.
A New Era
Nguyen is “excited to continue writing young adult novels.” In our rapidly changing world (“That may or may not give [young adults] existential dread,” she added with a laugh), she believes that the YA genre is a “mirror of our world.” The genre is a reflection of how young people are adapting, living, and “coming of age.”
However, there is a project in the works which she describes as “very different and a departure” from A Bánh Mì For Two. It features ghosts, magic, and folklore, and is “very close to [her] heart.” But no matter the genre or age group, readers can always expect to be pulled into an emotionally cathartic tale with Vietnamese characters and explorations of identity and belonging.
A Bánh Mì For Two is available for purchase at your nearest bookstores and online retailers. Follow Trinity Nguyen on Instagram, X, and subscribe to her Substack for updates on her upcoming projects.
Interested in more author spotlights? Check out our interview with S.K. Ali here!
