Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong

PARADISE OF THE BLIND is the first Vietnamese novel ever translated and published in North America (1993).  Duong Thu Huong is Vietnam’s most beloved and outspoken novelist. 

This is the journey of three women during the revolutionary years of the 1950s.  It encompasses the horror of the Land Reform Campaign which marked the beginning of Vietnam’s disillusionment with the Communist experiment and The Rectification of Errors.  Families and livlihoods were destroyed.  Generations of cultural beliefs were erased by those who embraced Communism creating family divisions beyond repair. 

Our main character is Hang, a young woman forced to grow up too fast in the slums of Hanoi.  Hang’s mother whose life is shattered by her fanatical communist brother.  Aunt Tam, who through her self sacrifice manages to keep the land for Hang.  The beautifully described Vietnamese countryside, the age-old rituals, the pride and endurance of the ordinary Vietnamese people surrounded by poverty, corruption and loss make this a moving novel.   I strongly suggest you read it – I am going to look for more books by this author.

Duong Thu Huong was born in 1947 in Vietnam.  At 20, she led a Communist Youth Brigade sent to the front during the Vietnam War.  A vocal advocate of human rights and democratic political reform, Duong Thu Huong was expelled from the  Vietnamese Communist party in 1989 and imprisioned without a trial for seven months in 1991.  Her four novels have all been banned in Vietnam.