Even before publication of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Butler had already established his reputation as a writer of Vietnam fiction. Such categorization displeased the author, who stated, "Artists get at deeper truths." Some of Butler's earlier works had also drawn criticism because he told the stories from a point of view that was not his own—that is, he took on the role of a Vietnamese person. Several short stories were even rejected by magazines on these grounds.

With the publication of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain in 1992, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize the following year, Butler silenced his critics. In this collection of fourteen short stories and a novella, critics and readers all agree on the power of Butler's prose and his haunting evocation of the Vietnamese voice. Most critics favorably commented on Butler's skillful and...