Robert Olen Butler
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Major Issues Major IssuesAll scholarly studies of Vietnam War literature by American writers note the important work of Robert Olen Butler. Butler’s fiction chronicles both wartime experiences and the postwar repercussions for his American, Vietnamese, and Amerasian characters. In his most lauded work, for example, he adopts the voices of Vietnamese refugees living in Louisiana. Critics point to Butler’s treatment of the darkest realities of contemporary life: including violence, racism, corporate exploitation, and nuclear threats. Suffering and intimacy have been identified as Butler’s major themes. Scholars have discussed Butler’s structural experimentation, such as a stream-of-consciousness sexual memoir. The "sensual details" and lyricism of his prose have also been commented on. Author Links A Good Scent From
a Strange Mountain
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