Dương Thu Hương

Quan, who enlists to fight for his country as an idealistic 18-year-old, has now fought for North Vietnam for a decade. Those ten years have taught him, if nothing else, the costs of idealism. Even as he tries to balance his patriotism with his cynicism, Quan turns to old memories for solace. Given the chance to return home, he seizes on the chance to make the physically and psychologically demanding journey. That journey forces him to confront his past, among other things: his father, his childhood sweetheart, his boyhood friends now maimed or dead, and ultimately to recognize that his innocence and his idealism came at an enormous price. How should he handle his disillusionment with the Communist Party? A quiet, emotionally charged book, this often reads like the stories of an old man looking back on his life. That it is, instead, the reflections of a 28-year-old veteran, told mostly through a series of vignettes, illustrates the power of the book. Indeed, the collection of loosely connected “stories” really can be seen as almost a mythic quest by a hero toward (self-)knowledge.… (mais)

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Thu-Huong-Au-zenith/121587

> DEUX CHEFS-D'OEUVRES. DEUX ROMANS INITIATIQUES. À LIRE ABSOLUMENT. — Qualité de la construction romanesque. Écriture à la fois sobre et flamboyante, tendre et crue, évoquant tragédies, destins, pouvoir. C'est bien la magie de la littérature que cette capacité d'emmener le lecteur dans les méandres de l'histoire vietnamienne contemporaine, à travers le regard des différents personnages.
La vie de l'auteur ; qui vit depuis 2006 à Paris, vaut un roman. Cette femme née en 1947 au Vietnam, a connu la guerre contre les français, a lutté 20 ans contre les américains et 20 ans contre le pouvoir en place à Hanoï. (Jacques MARMEY)
• Duong Thu Huong, Terre des oublis, 794 pages, 2006, Sabine Wespieser
• Id., Au Zénith, 800 pages, 2009, Sabine Wespieser
—Carnets du Yoga, (278), Juin 2009, (p. 19)… (mais)

Hang, a Vietnamese woman, came of age in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Hang never knew her father, a teacher driven into exile during the land reform era by a local Communist party leader who was also his brother-in-law. Hang’s Aunt Tam, her father’s sister, lavishes affection on her young niece as the sole member of her generation to carry on the family line. Hang’s mother increasingly devotes her meager resources to support her party member brother and his family. Hang embodies the tension between the two sides of her family.

This novel depicts a beautiful but broken country. A great loneliness permeates the novel. Hang’s mother and her Aunt Tam pull her in different directions, trying to force her to choose between the two sides of her family. As she tries to do her duty to both families, Hang’s isolation grows, yet she is still young enough to dream of a different future.… (mais)