The Stars, The Earth, The River: Short Stories by Le Minh Khue (Voice from Vietnam) - Softcover

Khue, Le Minh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1880684470 ISBN 13: 9781880684474

Publisher: Curbstone Books, 1997

Synopsis

This collection of 14 stories--each a harrowing sketch of the Vietnam War and its aftermath-- offers American readers a glimpse offamiliar territory, but from an unfamiliar perspective. Often writing from a young woman's point of view, Le Minh Khue, a war veteran who served in the Youth Volunteers Brigade, uses simple, understated prose to describe numbing horrors:

"There were three of us. Three girls. We lived in a cavern at the foot of a strategic hill ... Our job was to sit there. Whenever a bomb exploded, we had to run up, figure out how much earth was needed to fill the hold, count the unexploded bombs, and, if necessary, detonate them. They called us the Ground Reconnaissance Team. That title inspired in us a passion to do heroic deeds and therefore our work was not that simple." So begins the first story, "Distant Stars."

Born in 1949, Le Minh Khue was no stranger to the vagaries of Land Reform politics and war. Colored by her stint as a war correspondent in Vietnam, Khue's level gaze lingers over the shambles of a war-torn country and its reconstruction to examine the soul of a people whose culture has all but been destroyed.

The Stars, the Earth, the River contains an excellent introduction by the translators, grounding the stories in Le Minh Khue's personal history; the narrator of "A Day on the Road" speaks from having witnessedthe carnage of war. You simultaneously feel the rage of the author and the narrator when Khue disparagingly notes that the conversations around her center on luxuries, motor scooters, and business deals. Of what use, these stories ask, is such suffering? How can a culture honor the losses of war?

About this title

About the Author:

Le Minh Khue, one of the leading writers of Vietnam, is currently an editor at the Vietnam Writers' Association Publishing House in Hanoi. A veteran of the American/Vietnam War, she served as a member of the Youth Volunteers Brigade (Sappers) and as a war correspondent.

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Vietnamese

About this edition

• Publisher: Curbstone Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1880684470
• ISBN 13: 9781880684474
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232
• Editor: Karlin Wayne