Becoming Ghost

Poetry

By: Cathy Linh Che

Narrated by: Cathy Linh Che

2025 National Book Award Finalist
2026 APALA Literature Awards - Asian American Poetry Winner
Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry of 2024 and 2025
Electric Literature’s Best Poetry Collections, 2025
NPR’s Books We Love 2025
2026 ALA RUSA Notable Poetry List

The long-awaited sophomore poetry collection by award-winning writer Cathy Linh Che, on familial estrangement, the Vietnam War, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.

The follow-up to her acclaimed poetry debut Split, Becoming Ghost documents Cathy Linh Che’s parents’ experiences as refugees who escaped the Vietnam War and then were cast as extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now, placing them at the margins of their own story. The poetry collection uses persona, speculation, and the golden shovel form as a means of moving Vietnamese voices from the periphery to the center. The speaker’s disownment raises questions about the challenges of using parents as poetic subjects, telling familial stories to a broader public, and the meaning of forgiveness.