{"id":52228,"date":"2017-03-08T01:09:41","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T01:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=52228"},"modified":"2021-09-14T18:00:10","modified_gmt":"2021-09-14T18:00:10","slug":"the-land-barons-sun-the-story-of-ly-loc-and-his-seven-wives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=52228","title":{"rendered":"The Land Baron’s Sun: The Story of L\u00fd Loc and His Seven Wives"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Land Baron’s Sun: The Story of L\u00fd Loc and His Seven Wives<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press<\/a>
\n2014
\n108 pages
\nPaperback ISBN: 9781935754350<\/p>\n

Genaro K\u1ef3 L\u00fd Smith<\/strong><\/a>, Professor of Creative Writing
\nLouisiana Tech University<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Land Baron\u2019s Sun<\/em> chronicles through poetry the life of L\u00fd Loc, the son of an affluent Vietnamese landowner who was thought to own the sun by his children, wives, servants, and tenant farmers because it had always shone favorably upon him. L\u00fd Loc lived just as prosperous a life, one in which he rose to the rank of major commander for the South Vietnamese Army<\/a> and was attended to by seven wives who bore him twenty-seven children. On April 20, 1975, the day Saigon fell<\/a>, fate took a cruel turn for L\u00fd Loc, as the sun, a symbol of the divine love, refused to shine. His capture by the Vi\u1ec7t C\u1ed9ng<\/a> and incarceration in a reeducation camp<\/a> marked only the beginning of the sun recouping all that it had bestowed upon L\u00fd Loc and his family. Smith\u2019s poems delve into L\u00fd Loc\u2019s childhood and adult life, his years spent in the reeducation camp, and his wives\u2019 and children\u2019s fate\u2014both in Vietnam<\/a> and, for those who were fortunate enough to escape, in America. The poems expose the beauty and freedom of the human spirit and the lushness that was once Vietnam; likewise, they show the undeniable oppression of a country divided on itself and the struggle its people went through to survive.<\/p>\n