Kien Nguyen (Vietnamese: Nguyễn Kiên), born in Nha Trang, South Vietnam, 1967, is an author. Kien was born to a Vietnamese mother from a once wealthy family and an American civil engineer. His mother's family, who had lost their wealth when the French left Vietnam, lived among neighbors who treated them as pariahs because of their colonialist background. Kien, a child of mixed race, was especially ostracized from the community. He left Vietnam in 1985 through the United Nations "Orderly Departure Program." After spending time at a refugee camp in the Philippines, he arrived in the United States and became a dentist. He lives in New York City.
A childhood memoir, written in first person, with the reader seeing the boy grow, in South Vietnam, until the book's ending at age 18, on his way to the U.S. The Unwanted shows a much ignored history of American Vietnamese "half-breeds" that were left behind by American soldier fathers, after the United States left Vietnam. Although the title is a tribute to these kids, the book focuses on what Kien saw as a child. This death is exemplified as Kien depicts a woman on the side of the road with her dying child still attached by the cord. This happens as the family is attempting to leave the country as the north are unifying with the south (the capitalist allies of the United States). They failed to leave. After the Vietnam crisis slowed down for and eventually ended for the United States, Kien describes how the north entered the city with music playing and paper posters of their leader, commonly referred to as Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Mihn). After the United States left Vietnam, Kien shows the system that was put in place, an attempt for the government to create a perfect society of equals. As their childhood progresses, Kien's mother (a former hand model while the United States was still around) attempted to make shop and sell goods in the local market, this was shut down by the crew of young volunteers whose job was to clean up the "mess" the capitalists left. The justification was that prices would inflate. This is a book that shows life in Vietnam. It has love, death, hate, torture, hope, despair and near death experiences for Kien. It is very graphic and detailed.