Background
Mrs. Duong was born in Thai Binh, Vietnam, in 1947. She was a daughter of Duong Dinh Chau (a radio specialist and North Vietnamese military officer) and Ngo Thuy Cham (a primary school teacher).
(Paradise of the Blind is an exquisite portrait of three V...)
Paradise of the Blind is an exquisite portrait of three Vietnamese women struggling to survive in a society where subservience to men is expected and Communist corruption crushes every dream. Through the eyes of Hang, a young woman in her twenties who has grown up amidst the slums and intermittent beauty of Hanoi, we come to know the tragedy of her family as land reform rips apart their village. When her uncle Chinh‘s political loyalties replace family devotion, Hang is torn between her mother‘s appalling self–sacrifice and the bitterness of her aunt who can avenge but not forgive. Only by freeing herself from the past will Hang be able to find dignity –– and a future.
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(“Reminiscent of All Quiet on Western Front and The Red Ba...)
“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 past—his angry father, his childhood sweetheart, his boyhood friends now maimed or dead—and 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 Vietnam’s 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
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(Now in paperback, a mesmerizing novel about a tragic love...)
Now in paperback, a mesmerizing novel about a tragic love triangle between three characters whose destinies have been inextricably linked by war, from Vietnam's acclaimed writer and famous dissident No Man's Land is set in a hamlet in the countryside of central Vietnam immediately following the end of the war in 1975. The novel's plot is set in motion when a young woman, happily married to a successful farmer, comes home one day to find a throng of villagers assembled around her gate. She learns that her first husband, who reportedly died as a martyr and war hero many years back, is in fact alive and has returned to claim her. Faced with the immense pressure of the community and the Party authorities, who forced her marriage to the soldier on the day he was to leave for the front, she dutifully agrees to leave her second husband and their son to live in a squalid shack with the veteran. This tragic twist of fate gives the novel a powerful narrative drive that makes it Huong's most accomplished work to date.
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(Memories of a Pure Spring is a mesmerizing portrait of mo...)
Memories of a Pure Spring is a mesmerizing portrait of modern Vietnam and its people who struggle to survive under the complexities of a post-war regime. During the Vietnam war, Hung, a well-known composer, becomes enchanted by the voice and beauty of a young peasant girl named Suong. He invites her to join his troupe; she becomes his wife and his star performer. But after the war, Hung loses his job, setting off a series of events that drive him and Suong into a destructive spiral. One of Vietnam's most popular writers, Duong Thu Huong draws on her own experiences to describe life at the battlefront, the conditions of a "re-education" camp, and the texture and rhythm, scents and sounds, of a provincial Vietnamese city. Most of all, she tells a haunting, universal story of failed love.
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(From the most important Vietnamese author writing today, ...)
From the most important Vietnamese author writing today, a powerful, ambitious novel about the thirst for absolute power Widely considered today’s preeminent Vietnamese novelist, Duong Thu Huong has won acclaim for her exceptional lyricism and psychological acumen, as well as for her unflinching portraits of modern Vietnam and its culture and people. In her latest book, she offers a sweeping tale of thwarted love, political intrigue, and treachery that centers on the final months in the life of Ho Chi Minh at an isolated mountain compound where he is imprisoned both physically and emotionally. The Zenith reveals moral truths that continue to reverberate today among those many Americans who still silently live with sadness and regret over the Vietnam War.
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(Now available for the first time in North America, Huongs...)
Now available for the first time in North America, Huongs first novel is a brilliantly spun tale of a young woman who marries her professor because she so admires his idealism. When he sells out everything he believes in order to support her, her love goes. Only when they are both beyond illusions can they try again for a real relationship. Deeply lyrical and wholly believable, this early novel is illuminated by the haunting language and unflinching honesty that have led critics to hail Huong.
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(A Study Guide for Duong Thu Huong's "Paradise of the Blin...)
A Study Guide for Duong Thu Huong's "Paradise of the Blind," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
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(A piercing, unforgettable tale of the horror and spiritua...)
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.
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Mrs. Duong was born in Thai Binh, Vietnam, in 1947. She was a daughter of Duong Dinh Chau (a radio specialist and North Vietnamese military officer) and Ngo Thuy Cham (a primary school teacher).
Duong Thu Huong graduated from Cultural Theory College in 1968.
Mrs. Duong was a cultural activities guide in Vietnam, prior to 1975. Beginning in 1975, she became a screenwriter at Hanoi Feature Film Studio, Hanoi, Vietnam.
In 1993 her book, In Paradise of the Blind, became the first of her works to appear in English.
Dissident and novelist Duong Thu Huong is among the most popular writers in contemporary Vietnam. Her widely praised novels, which include Paradise of the Blind and Novel without a Name, were first translated into French for France’s thriving Vietnamese expatriate community, and later into English editions.
(From the most important Vietnamese author writing today, ...)
(Now in paperback, a mesmerizing novel about a tragic love...)
(A piercing, unforgettable tale of the horror and spiritua...)
(Paradise of the Blind is an exquisite portrait of three V...)
(Now available for the first time in North America, Huongs...)
(Memories of a Pure Spring is a mesmerizing portrait of mo...)
(A Study Guide for Duong Thu Huong's "Paradise of the Blin...)
(“Reminiscent of All Quiet on Western Front and The Red Ba...)
Quotations:
Duong Thu Huong told CA: "My official job in the late sixties was to guide mass cultural activities; namely, to organize amateur art units (song and dance, pantomime) for mass entertainment. After graduating from the Cultural Theory College in 1968, I carried out this task in Quang Binh, the hardest-hit."
"I never intended to become a writer. As I always lell others, it just happened to me, because of the Pain. Pain is the precise word. My novels are cries Pain. My work is inseparable from the society in which I have lived, the country, Vietnam."
"My personal struggle — and it is one shared by many others — is to gain respect for my rights as a free Cltizen, here in my own country. Writing is the way free myself, the way I make myself a free woman. I could have gone to the United States in 1980 at the invitation of my relatives, but I wanted to stay in Vietnam. I have decided to devote my life to writing and making films about my country. If they decide to put me in prison again. I’m ready."
Duong Thu Huong, the author’s frequently unflattering fictional portrayals of Vietnamese Communist Party functionaries, have made her the target of official harassment, arrest, and incarceration in her native country. She was expelled from the Vietnamese Communist Party in 1989, and arrested in 1991 for attempting to “smuggle ‘reactionary’ documents out of the country, according to Philip Shenon in the New York Times. "The documents turned out to be her own writings." Duong subsequently spent seven months in prison, and was released only after the collapse of the Soviet Union’s Communist government.
Duong Thu Huong married in 1968 (divorced in 1981). She has two children: Minh, Ha.
