An Emissary from Heaven · Tinh Binh — Phi Nhung

When Phi Nhung died of Covid-19 on 28 September 2021, millions of Vietnamese people around the world grieved as though they had lost someone personally known to them. For many of them, they had: she had appeared on their television screens every Tet for decades, sung on their parents’ stereos, and visited their home provinces to give to charities. The “green heart” community – her fans’ self-identifier, taken from the emoji they placed beneath her posts – was vast, devoted, and in genuine mourning.

Michael Arnold reached out to Wendy Pham, Phi Nhung’s biological daughter in California, through the memorial email address Wendy had created in her mother’s honour. His proposal was to produce an authorised English-language biography so that the story of Phi Nhung’s life could reach readers outside the Vietnamese-speaking world. Wendy agreed, was in constant touch during the production period, and provided the foreword for the book.

The biography was built entirely from Phi Nhung’s own words: information drawn from recordings of her speeches, interviews, and public appearances across her career, woven into a narrative and confirmed by Wendy. No unofficial sources or unverified third-party accounts were used. The result is a record of Phi Nhung’s life as she told it.

Metro Writers produced the English edition as An Emissary from Heaven and the Vietnamese edition as Tịnh Bình, a title drawn from the Buddhist name Phi Nhung was given – a reference to the sacred lotus vase of Guan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, believed to have predestined her on a mission of mercy. The Vietnamese edition was produced in full colour with 40 photographs of Phi Nhung across her lifetime, made available through SaigonBooks and distributed to major bookstores nationally.

The English edition reached the top ten on Amazon’s bestseller list for biographies of social activists. Metro Writers declined to profit from the book: all royalties above minimal operating costs are paid directly to the Phi Nhung Forever Foundation under Wendy’s supervision.

She stayed in Vietnam during the pandemic when she could have come home. That decision — more than any song, any award, any headline — is who Phi Nhung was.

Phi Nhung was born in the Central Highlands of Vietnam as the daughter of an American soldier she never knew and a Vietnamese woman who could not openly keep her. Raised by her grandparents in Pleiku, marked by her mixed heritage as the war ended, she found her earliest comfort in song and in the quiet of a nearby Buddhist temple. When the chance came to emigrate to the United States under the Amerasian Homecoming Act, she arrived with nothing and built a career that made her one of the most beloved Vietnamese performers of her generation – a Paris by Night icon with a voice that her fans said carried the whole of southern Vietnam inside it.

But the fame and fortune she accumulated in America were never the point. Phi Nhung spent the majority of her adult life returning to Vietnam, adopting children, funding orphanages, and quietly absorbing the costs of causes she never publicised. She was known in Vietnamese showbiz as the celebrity mother with the most children – she adopted 23 in total. When Covid-19 swept through Vietnam in 2021, she stayed behind to help rather than fly home to her family in California. It was a decision consistent with everything she had always been. It was also the decision that killed her.

An Emissary from Heaven is the first authorised English-language biography of Phi Nhung, produced in cooperation with her daughter Wendy Pham and confirmed from her own recorded words. The Vietnamese edition, Tịnh Bình, is available in full colour through SaigonBooks. All royalties above Metro Writers’ minimal costs are donated to the Phi Nhung Forever Foundation.

“One year ago the world suffered a great loss with the passing of Phi Nhung. She meant so much to many generations of Vietnamese people including nationals and the diaspora. We laughed with her, we cried with her, we grew up with her. This work is important because it helps us immortalise the journey of a heavenly being returning to her place amongst the stars.”

— Amazon reader review

“Great book! The storytelling is so captivating. Once you start a chapter you could not stop reading until the end. Many thanks to the authors for helping spread an inspiring story to the world. She was a wonderful person, a great singer, and a devout philanthropist — the celebrity mother with the most children in Vietnamese showbiz.”

— Amazon reader review

“Very emotional reading this book. I cried in the first few pages already. Phi Nhung was one of a kind — no one can ever come close to being like her. It’s good to see that her memories and songs will never ever be forgotten.”

— Amazon reader review