Krigets sorger (1995)

Bao Ninh's novel "Krigets sorger/The Sorrows of the War" deals with how the Vietnamese themselves perceived the war. He gives a low-key and desperate picture, far from the heroic self-sacrificing struggle that those in power like to emphasize. The book has become an international bestseller and a great success in Vietnam. But the regime criticizes it as unpatriotic and the author lives a precarious life in Hanoi. Fighting for independence was obvious, Bao Ninh believes. But it must be possible to speak openly about the price a whole generation in war has had to pay.