Two Hamlets in Nam Bo

<p> The author was born in 1940 and spent his childhood in two small villages the paternal and the maternal in southern Vietnam: Binh Chuan and Tuy An (An Phu). The villages were deeply affected by the powerful political events of the next fifty years. In this memoir (first sentence: I was born as the Japanese Troops were invading northern Vietnam) the author writes of what he saw heard and knew providing an invaluable social history of the country. </p><p> Readers will learn about a people who have endured separation dictatorship carnage persistent suffering and poverty all the while yearning for independence and prosperity. Included are many stories--some funny some heartbreaking--that reveal how the Vietnamese people lived as well as their thoughts on war on the French Japanese and Americans on the Nationalist and Communist governments and on escape. The result is a heartfelt social painting of the nation.</p>