Khoi Pham
Bewildering Stories biography
The fictional character I relate most deeply to is Stephen Dedalus from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Not in talent, of course, but in that feeling of being part of many places yet belonging nowhere.
I am Vietnamese, born and raised in Vietnam before moving to Germany at a relatively young age, though not young enough to adapt easily, nor old enough to feel rooted, to have the honor of fully belonging to either my homeland or the country I’ve settled in.
For years, I’ve passionately and decisively immersed myself in the beauty of mathematics and computer science. And now, quite suddenly, I’m sending fiction and poetry in English to literary journals.
If you find that a rather unusual combination, it’s because it is. I struggled with my sense of identity for a long time. I’ve been part of many things but have never fully belonged to any of them. People have called me by different names, due to the various ways they wrote my name down. Coincidentally, I feel each of those names reflects a part of me, not unlike a prism warping the light that passes through it.
It’s a strange, ineffable, frustrating kind of loneliness. I’ve loved reading and writing since I was a child, though I repressed the urge to write for a long, long time in pursuit of the career I chose. I only picked up writing again recently, as a part-time activity to balance the pressure that comes with my career.
To my surprise, the more I write, the more whole I feel, like my memory is becoming solid, real, physical. Writing down my thoughts feels like the only way for me to understand who I am, to let myself exist. The Muse sisters were born from Zeus making love to Mnemosyne.
As of July 2025, my work has appeared, or is scheduled to appear, in Bewildering Stories (the first journal to accept one of my stories), Academy of the Heart and Mind, and Literary Yard.
Copyright © 2025 by Khoi Pham
