{"product_id":"andrew-pham-catfish-and-mandala-9780006552239","title":"Catfish and Mandala","description":"'Jack Kerouac meets \"Wild Swans\".' The Times. A voyage through Vietnam's ghost-ridden landscape, at once a moving memoir, travelogue and compelling search for identity. Vietnamese-born Andrew Pham finally returns to Saigon, not as a success showering money and gifts onto his family, but as an emotional shipwreck, desperate to find out who he really is. When his sister, a post-operative transsexual, committed suicide, Pham sold all his possessions and embarked on a year-long bicycle journey that took him through the Mexican desert; around a thousand-mile loop from Narita to Kyoto in Japan; and, after five months and 2,357 miles, to Saigon, where he finds 'nothing familiar in the bombed-out darkness'. At first meant to facilitate forgetfulness, Pham's travels turn into an unforgettable, eye-opening search for cultural identity which flashes back to his parent's courtship in Vietnam, his father's imprisonment by the Vietcong, and his family's nail-bitingly narrow escape as 'boat people'. Lucid, witty and beautifully written, 'Catfish and Mandala' evokes a Vietnam you can almost smell and taste, laying bare the psyche of a troubled hero whose search for home and identity becomes our own.","brand":"HarperCollins","offers":[{"title":"Used - good","offer_id":53193743335766,"sku":"9780006552239-G","price":33.15,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Used - very good","offer_id":53364317389142,"sku":"9780006552239-V","price":3.49,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0925\/5829\/5382\/files\/product_image_9780006552239_1.jpg?v=1777911498","url":"https:\/\/www.momoxbooks.com\/products\/andrew-pham-catfish-and-mandala-9780006552239","provider":"momoxbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}