Andrew Lam is a writer for Pacific News Service, and is a regular commentator for National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." His real love, however, is writing fiction.

He left Vietnam in 1975 at age 11 on a C-130. His family first went to Guam, then Camp Pendleton, and finally to Northern California. His father had been an officer for the South Vietnamese army, and joined the family later. His uncle, who stayed behind in Vietnam was in re-education camp for 11 years, which is certainly the fate his father would have met had he stayed. His mother's family was from North Vietnam and fled to the South with her family in 1954 when the French left, before the civil war started.

Lam studied biochemistry at UC Berkeley and then decided to take a creative writing course. For years he had blocked out the memory of Vietnam. In the United States, he had pretended Vietnam was a dream. He didn't speak Vietnamese for the first 5 years he was here. In his late teens, Lam started wondering about the past. He wanted to explain his history to his peers. He found the impetus to fuel his writing: to inform Americans about the history of the Vietnamese people.

Lam's stories and his characters have lives of their own. They don't necessarily reflect his politics or beliefs. The stories are about the lasting effects of war and the displacement of human life. He also wants to create examples of people who may have been transformed by the war, but who are not victims of it. He attempts to marry the memory of that war, to what he's become a global villager.

On the The Artists' War Andrew Lam said, "Art is the lesser sister to medicine. It aims to heal."

What stories have you read or heard that have helped you survive the trauma of war, and why?

Visit Andrew Lam's Web site at Pacific News Service.