Abstract

This article examines how Francophone Vietnamese life stories construct narrative identity through memory, testimony, and historical experience, including exile. Drawing on Paul Ricœur’s theory of narrative identity, it argues that identity is not fixed and essential but a dynamic process of self-interpretation shaped by narration. Looking beyond the literary genre of autobiography, the study employs the broader category of life stories, encompassing autobiographical narratives, memoirs, testimonial writing, and autobiographical fiction. Through the analysis of works by Nguyen Ky Nguyen, Kim Thúy, Pham Van Ky, Linda Lê, Nguyen Tien Lang, Lý Thu Hồ, Lucien Trọng, and Nguyễn Văn Thanh, it identifies two major forms of subjectivity: exilic and witness-based. The analysis demonstrates how these narratives transform lived experience into a space of self-reconstruction, where individual memory intersects with collective history. Ultimately, it finds narration in Francophone Vietnamese life stories to be a practice of identity negotiation, memory transmission, and resistance to forgetting.