For a long time, Van thought he knew his mother.
He knew her voice, her gestures, her silences. He knew the woman who worked, prayed, cooked, and kept going despite the fatigue.
But he did not truly know her story.
His mother, Phan Thi Mung, was born in the mountains of Nha Trang, in an earthen house facing the sea. A poor child in a family where daughters were given little, she grew up among work, chores, shouting, and silence.
Then her life changed forever.
There was the escape from Vietnam. The sea. The refugee camp in Palawan. The arrival in France. Work. Family secrets. Illness. And through all of it, a woman who kept moving forward, even when no one could see what she carried.
Years later, as his mother was fighting cancer, Van began asking the questions he had never dared to ask. Little by little, the fragments returned. Childhood, exile, hunger, fear, faith, hidden wounds, and also the dignity of a woman who never stopped living.
Three Spoonfuls of Water is an intimate memoir about memory, exile, family, and truth. It is the portrait of a mother before she was only a mother.
A child.
A sister.
A refugee.
A worker.
A believer.
A whole woman.
A book written so her story would not disappear.
