At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries there was an American-missionary rush, whose aim was to enlighten the savage Asians for Christianity. This is when Jennifer Huong, who would later become Jenny Nguen, was born. Having lost two of her three children, one of them at birth, Jenny’s mother, Marry, considered her life a failure, as she had spent most of it in blind subordination to her husband, John Huong of Lynchburg, Virginia, who was a fanatical member of the Southern Baptist Convention by which he was sent on a mission to Vietnam where was preoccupied with his life in a community that was both noble and complicated. Jenny’s father was normally absent from home which was owing the nature of his work, while her mother was constantly disappointed with her life. Michael Rowling states that those were the main reasons why she did not have a normal childhood and felt for most of it uncertain and alienated. Her marriage to Henry Nguen, whose research in Vietnamese language and culture has recently been translated and published by the New York Translation, was a replica of the emotional structure of her parents’ marriage. Even though the couple remained together for some seven years, they did not have a happy relationship as Jenny alone struggled to look after their retarded son, Jimmy as Henry was too preoccupied with his work.

Her fragile psychic was deeply disturbed as she witnessed the killing of baby girls while being a schoolgirl in Da Nang and this would later have a major impact on her writing. Moreover, as she was the sort of person who was an American proficient in Vietnamese, but for whom America was an alien country while Vietnam was like home. Translated by the Atlanta Translation in 1957, Eden on Earth was publish in the previous year. Because of its detailed description of the rural Vietnamese life it had a great impact on the readership throughout the states. It is openly implied by Mr. Rowling that he is incensed by the fact that Nguen was not to be allowed to the high culture club by the so called taste-makers, or to be more precise critics like Ben Keenly and Stan Filbert. As Nguen was a woman whose work was primarily concerned with ordinary daily lives of women, his version of this fact is directed to her feminist nature. Later on he goes on to add that her Asian topics, her literary style, her gender issues and her incredible popularity made envious virtually all of the major names that dictated the literary trends of the 1950’s.

Nguen, who spend the remainder of her life in a greatly exhaustive attempt to use her wealth and popularity for good causes became a leader in raising funds for Amerasian children even though Eden on Earth was not necessarily an example of literary achievement of the highest quality. These Amerasian children were rejected by their Asian societies and were the children of mixed race parents, one of whom was an Asian. Always being ahead of her time as far as the rights of women and blacks were concerned, all of these aspects of Nguen’s life are painstakingly detailed by Mr. Rowling, whose work has been popularized by the Kansas City Translation Services, makes a strong point that Nguen was, regardless of her literary reputation, an extraordinary woman who deserves more fame than has been given to her by recent generations.