Novel without a Name

The author of __Paradise of the Blind,__ the first novel from Vietnam ever published in America, traces a young man's experiences fighting for North Vietnam, in a novel banned in Vietnam for its subversive content. Reprint. 10,000 first printing. __NYT.__ A piercing, unforgettable tale of the horror and spiritual weariness of war, Novel Without a Name will shatter every preconception Americans have about what happened in the jungles of Vietnam. With Duong Thu Huong, whose Paradise of the Blind was published to high critical acclaim in 1993, Vietnam has found a voice both lyrical and stark, powerful enough to capture the conflict that left millions dead and spiritually destroyed her generation. Banned in the author's native country for its scathing dissection of the day-to-day realities of life for the Vietnamese during the final years of the "Vietnam War," Novel Without a Name invites comparison with All Quiet on the Western Front and other classic works of war fiction. The war is seen through the eyes of Quan, a North Vietnamese bo doi (soldier of the people) who joined the army at eighteen, full of idealism and love for the Communist party and its cause of national liberation. But ten years later, after leading his platoon through almost a decade of unimaginable horror and deprivation, Quan is disillusioned by his odyssey of loss and struggle. Furloughed back to his village in search of a fellow soldier, Quan undertakes a harrowing, solitary journey through the tortuous jungles of central Vietnam and his own unspeakable memories.

This is the powerful, deeply personal story of Vietnam's war against Americans as lived from the inside by North Vietnamese soldiers and villagers on the front lines. Vietnamese dissident Duong Thu Huong bears personal witness to the horror and spiritual weariness of ten years of war that claimed millions of Vietnamese lives.

Reminiscent of All Quiet on Western Front and The Red Badge of Courage . . . . A breathtakingly original work." San Francisco Chronicle Twenty-eight-year-old Quan has been fighting for the Communist cause in North Vietnam for a decade. Filled with idealism and hope when he first left his village, he now spends his days and nights dodging stray bullets and bombs, foraging scraps of food to feed himself and his men. Quan seeks comfort in childhood memories as he tries to sort out his conflicting feelings of patriotism and disillusionment. Then, given the chance to return to his home, Quan undertakes a physical and mental journey that brings him face to face with figures from his pasthis angry father, his childhood sweetheart, his boyhood friends now maimed or deadand ultimately to the shattering reality that his innocence has been irretrievably lost in the wake of the war. In a voice both lyrical and stark, Duong Thu Huong, one of Vietnams most beloved writers, powerfully conveys the conflict that spiritually destroyed her generation. If it is a crime to take an unflinching look at the reality of war and life under a totalitarian regime, and to do it with great art and mastery, then Duong Thu Huong, is gloriously guilty. The New York Times Book Review