Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [387]
Wayne Karlin, Le Minh Khue and Truong Vu (eds.) The Other Side of Heaven. A unique anthology of postwar fiction by Vietnamese and American authors. Though written by former enemies from all sides of the conflict, these stories echo back and forth the unifying themes of sorrow, pain and survival.
Le Minh Khue The Stars, The Earth, The River. Fourteen short stories by one of Vietnam’s leading contemporary writers, an ex-sapper who gently details the seesaw of “tragedy and hope” which defines her war-torn generation.
Nguyen Du The Tale of Kieu. Vietnamese literature reached its zenith with this tale of the ill-starred love between Kieu and Kim.
Nguyen Huy Thiep The General Retires and Other Stories. Perhaps Vietnam’s pre-eminent writer, Nguyen Huy Thiep articulates the lives of ordinary Vietnamese in these short stories – instead of following the prevailing trend of re-imagining the lives of past heroes.
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Novels set in Vietnam
Marguerite Duras The Lover. Young French girl meets wealthy Chinese man on a Mekong Delta ferry; the ensuing affair initiates her into adulthood, with all its joys and responsibilities. The novel’s depiction of a dysfunctional, hard-up French family in Vietnam provides an interesting slant on colonial life, showing it wasn’t all vermouths and tennis.
Graham Greene The Quiet American. Greene’s prescient and cautionary tale of the dangers of innocence in uncertain times, which anticipated America’s boorish manhandling of Vietnam’s political situation by several years, is still the best single account of wartime Vietnam. Its regular name-drops of familiar locales – Tay Ninh, the Continental, Dong Khoi – make it doubly enjoyable.
Anthony Grey Saigon. Vietnamese history given a blockbuster makeover: a rip-roaring narrative, whose Vietnamese, French and American protagonists conspire to be present at all defining moments in recent Vietnamese history, from French plantation riots to the fall of Saigon.
Nguyen Kien Tapestries. This rich and beautifully woven novel is based on the extraordinary real-life story of the author’s grandfather, who eventually became an embroiderer in the royal court of Hué. The context is a country on the cusp of change as French influence gains the upper hand.
Tim O’Brien Going After Cacciato. A highly acclaimed, lyrical tale of an American soldier who simply walks out of the war and sets off for Paris, pursued by his company on a fantastical mission that takes them across Asia. The savage reality of war stands out vividly against a dream-world of peace and freedom.
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History
William J. Duiker The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. One of America’s leading analysts of the political context in Vietnam takes a long close look at why Communist Vietnam won its wars – as opposed to why France and America lost.
William J. Duiker Ho Chi Minh: A Life. Duiker turns his spotlight on the patriot and revolutionary who led Vietnam to independence. It’s a thoroughly researched and exhaustive tome, particularly good on Ho’s political evolution, though fails to get under the skin of this enigmatic man.
Bernard Fall Hell in a Very Small Place. The classic account of the siege of Dien Bien Phu, capturing the claustrophobia and the fear, written by a French-born American journalist.
Bernard Fall Street Without Joy. Another masterpiece by Fall, charting the French debacle in Indochina, which became required reading for American generals and GIs – though it didn’t prevent them committing exactly the same mistakes just a few years later.
David Halberstam Ho. Diminutive, sympathetic and highly readable biography of Vietnam’s foremost icon, though no attempt is made to apportion blame for the disastrous land reforms of the 1950s.
Stanley Karnow Vietnam: A History. Weighty, august tome that elucidates the entire span of Vietnamese history.
Michael Maclear Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War. A solid introductory account of the French and American wars, from Ho’s alliance with Archimedes Patti, to the fall of Saigon.
Nguyen Khac Vien Vietnam: A Long