Taken from Looking for Duong Thu Huong by John Conroy:
Novel Without A Name was the first book written by a veteran from North Vietnam to be translated into English. The author, Duong Thu Huong, was not a soldier. She was an entertainer who performed for NVA troops and the army of drivers, porters, and repairers who operated along the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the American War in Vietnam.
Her protagonist,Sgt. Quan, spent nearly ten years fighting the Americans and the ARVN in South Vietnam. Beginning as a patriotic citizen from the North, he becomes more and more disillusioned and anti-war as the years go by. He wants to go home...just like most of the enemy soldiers he is fighting.
I traveled to northern Vietnam in the late Nineties to meet with Duong Thu Huong. Aside from a literary interest in her book and its author, I wanted to discuss purchasing the screen rights to Novel Without a Name. The following article contains excerpts from the original, unpublished work written years ago.... Read More
