When Literature Becomes a Form of Healing: The Broken Pieces by Minh Cuong Tran
On July 26 and 27, 2025, in the tranquil and poetic setting of Lumiere Byblos Villa (6B Ngo Thoi Nhiem Street, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City), author Minh Cuong Tran officially launched his debut essay collection The Broken Pieces — a book not meant to sit untouched on a shelf, but to rest close to the heart.
Like a gentle remedy for wounded souls, The Broken Pieces does not aim to soothe pain with platitudes or to force healing. It offers no advice, no promises of happy endings. Minh Cuong Tran writes with empathy, with the depth of someone who has endured, and with a quiet respect for every scar that still lingers in the hearts of his readers. Each page feels like a deep breath — an invitation to pause, to feel, and to touch the memories we thought we had forgotten.
There are no loud climaxes, no dramatic turns. The book gently revisits the small, delicate moments: a silence at the wrong time, a lonely Christmas night, or a farewell on a Saigon afternoon when someone walked away without looking back. And somehow, these quiet fragments echo loudly within us. Because in those words, we often find ourselves — in our own fragility, our own longing, our own past.
Minh Cuong Tran does not write to “fix” things — he writes to touch. He doesn’t romanticize life; instead, he opens the door to a space of stillness and honesty, where each reader is free to feel whatever surfaces. These essays don’t seek sympathy. They simply exist — and that, perhaps, is enough.
The Broken Pieces is not just a debut. It’s a confession from a soul that has walked through all shades of emotion — love and loss, silence and memory. It is for those who have loved deeply, who have grieved quietly, who are still learning how to let go or hold on. It is for those who think they have forgotten how to feel — but haven’t.
This is not a book to race through in a single sitting. It’s a book to keep nearby — for the nights that ache, for the moments when everything is too much, or simply for when you need someone to speak the words you couldn’t say yourself.
TOM TOM
