Hanoi at Midnight: Stories

Breaking a thirty-year silence, Bảo Ninh haspermitted at last the publication of a new work in English. Ninh is perhapsVietnam's foremost chronicler of the war, which he joined at age 17. Bringingto life the full range of his inventive and poetic language, Quan Manh Ha andCab Tran are granting to English readers Bảo Ninh's first book-length worksince The Sorrow of War, which catapulted him to fame andwhich was banned in Vietnam until 2006. In Hà Nội atMidnight, ten stories are appearing in the West for the firsttime. Juxtaposed with tranquilityand geniality are abandoned landscapes and defoliated forests. Polluted riversand streams, the war-torn sky, pungent air filled with the stench ofdecomposing human corpses, and the deafening roar of helicopters and bombershovering in the gloom dominate the settings of Bảo Ninh'sstories.Intertwined with these horrific images are humantears shed during farewell ceremonies, when recruits are separated from theirloved ones, when parents live in anxiety and hope while their children arefighting in remote regions, and when soldiers bury their comrades and burdenthemselves with the fallen's unfulfilled wishes. Hà Nội atMidnight delineates the complex outpourings of war and the way itremakes human relationships.