Caroline Guiela Nguyen: on lost countries and inherited belonging

Caroline Guiela Nguyen is an acclaimed French author, theatre director, and filmmaker, renowned for productions that use storytelling as a device for social commentary. In 2009, she founded the theatre company Les Hommes Approximatifs, creating ensemble works with the mission of giving voice to stories often unrepresented on stage. Her early productions included Se souvenir de Violetta, Elle brûle, and Mon grand amour before achieving international recognition with Saïgon, a play exploring colonial and migratory histories that has toured worldwide.

Nguyen’s approach draws on research into real experiences to shape narratives, unpacking the complexity of ethics as collectively understood truths. She has collaborated with major European theatres and, since September 2023, serves as director of the Théâtre National de Strasbourg. Her work has earned several honours, including the SACD Nouveau Talent Theatre prize and the decoration of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Nguyen’s productions bring marginalized voices onto major stages without reducing them to case studies, sending a clear message: inclusive, socially conscious theatre can and should belong at the highest level of French performing arts.

hube: You often speak about the idea of “collective imagination.” In the context of theatre and directing, what does that phrase truly mean to you? How did it become a guiding force in the way you build worlds on stage and create space for multiple voices to shape a shared narrative?

Caroline Guiela Nguyen: I talk about it because it directly touches on the collective imagination. To give you a concrete example: the first time I staged a play with the Vietnamese community in France, there was a very simple scene—a French soldier who was romantically involved with a Vietnamese woman during the colonial period.

The first time we put this soldier on a French stage opposite a Vietnamese actress, we realised that the entire imaginary universe that surfaced was made up solely of references such as Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket. In other words, an imagination drawn almost exclusively from a different war: that of the Americans against the Vietnamese.

This reveals a lack: the absence, in our collective imagination, of images, stories and representations of the French colonial period in Vietnam. This “blind spot” is precisely what interests me today in my theatrical work. What do we create with? Which narratives do we have to work with—and sometimes struggle against?

As a writer—before even being a director—I ask myself this question: what is my share of responsibility in the stories and imaginaries I inject into our human communities? Which worlds am I helping to bring into existence?