Despre memoriile femeii și alți dragoni

Her stay in Vietnam brings back Raluca Nagy’s childhood memories. She arrives in late 2019 and stays for almost two years. The pandemic and her own choices keep her there. She learns about a culture that is new to her. At the same time, she looks back on her past. Far from home, she finds new ways to see herself.

This memoir blends letters with accounts that read like a diary. It adds personal essays and notes on people and their culture. It explores memory, bias and our place in the world. Nagy writes about culture and literature with humor and feeling. At its heart is her childhood, recalled some thirty years later.

Nagy draws on her work as a writer and an anthropologist. She grew up in Mănăștur, a district of Cluj. She then studied in Bucharest. Her career later took her to Belgium and England. These parts of her life shape how she sees Vietnam. They also shape her view of her own life. This is her third book, a shift from fiction to memoir. It forms part of the n’autor nonfiction series.

The book earned two award nominations in 2024. One was for PEN România. The other was for Observator cultural, in its essay and journalism category.