Book Description

Ngo The Vinh was an ARVN Airborne Ranger M.D. during the Vietnam War. This author, winner of the 1971 National Prize for Literature for his novel The Green Belt, ironically was also penalized for his writing, when he was summoned to the court of law because of the title story of this collection: "The Battle of Saigon". This short story records the spiritual journey of a soldier who accepts sacrifice and hardship in the struggle for freedom of South Vietnam, a soldier who at the same time longs for a better society in the future. For the contents of this work, Ngo The Vinh was accused of using the press to circulate arguments that were deemed detrimental to public order, that militated against the discipline and fighting spirit of the army, a collective of which he himself was a member. Like the title story, the other eleven works in this collection, half of them created before and the other half after 1975, present war and post-war traumatic experiences and dreams from the perspective of Vietnamese Diaspora. "The Battle of Saigon" has never ended and also will never end. The reality turns out to be that a writer possesses no power other than a sensitive heart that foresees in whole the Collective Pain. Everyone should read "The Battle of Saigon", and re-read it in order to reduce to some extent the cruelty and ruthlessness of the battle prevailing at present in Saigon, even in Hanoi, in the Central Highlands, in each of us here, overseas Vietnamese residing in the United States of America. -- Phan Nhat Nam, author of The Prisoners of War