The Young Die Old

by Nguyễn Bình Phương

Edited by Joshua Black 

Translated by Khải Q. Nguyễn

Set in the mythic village of Phan, the novel follows a tangled web of characters haunted by buried secrets, ancestral curses, and an unnamed historical trauma. Two feuding families vie for control of a mysterious treasure said to lie beneath the land, while a former soldier wanders the village, driven by fractured memories, and unfulfilled desires.

Like a fragmented but lyrical nightmare, Nguyễn Bình Phương evokes the disorientation of a society grappling with the aftershocks of war, repression, and silence. The title speaks to a generation whose youth was lost before it began—children who age prematurely under the weight of unspoken histories.