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Duong Thu Huong. Novel Without a Name. Phan Huy Duong, Nina McPherson, trs. New York. Morrow. 1995. 292 pages. $23. ISBN 0-688-12782-7.
Marxist governments have always been confounded by artists. The current Vietnamese authorities are no exception, particularly in their response to dissident artists, even in this "enlightened" age.
In recent years Duong Thu Huong has emerged as one of Vietnam's more popular dissident voices with her writings describing life under the communists from the 1950s to the present. A child of the revolution with a modest background, who once supported the "Liberation War' and now denounces its leaders, Duong Thu Huong has received more international attention than many longtime opponents of Vietnamese communism who, despite their insight and eloquence, committed the sin of being on the wrong side of the unpopular war. A few Vietnamese emigres have suggested she may simply be a pawn of Hanoi, too soft in her criticism of the regime and not wise enough to embrace the righteous cause of South Vietnam.
There appears, however, to be little basis for such suspicions. While receiving an award in France for her novel Nhung Thien Duong Mu (translated into English as Paradise of the Blind; see WLT 66:2, p. 410), Duong Thu Huong was rewarded...