Beyond illusions
(Book)

Novel.

Readers and reviewers around the world have embraced Duong Thu Huong's novels and hailed her for her outspoken advocacy of democracy and human rights and her courage in the face of government persecution. In the U.S., where Huong was the first contemporary Vietnamese novelist ever published in English translation, her books have been called "extraordinary and profoundly tragic" (Boston Sunday Globe), "astonishingly powerful" (Los Angeles Times Book Review), and "breathtakingly original" (San Francisco Chronicle). Though her novels are banned in Vietnam, where she continues to live in internal exile, Huong remains one of the most popular and controversial writers for Vietnamese readers both at home and abroad.

Originally published in Vietnam in 1987, Beyond Illusions established the author as one of the major voices of her generation, selling more than 100,000 copies, an astonishing figure given the then impoverished state of the country. Now available for the first time in translation, this daring debut novel is sure to confirm Huong's international reputation as both the most lyrical and the most lucid analyst of her country. This arresting work opens with a woman named Linh staring at her sleeping husband, Nguyen, with a mixture of bewilderment and disgust. She strains to remember how she, as a young student, once linked her destiny to his. A scruffy yet romantic professor of literature, Nguyen had captivated Linh with his youthful optimism and lofty moral values. During their first years together, the couple struggled to make ends meet in the penury and deprivation of postwar Vietnam. But when Nguyen left academia to become a journalist, he confronted the harsh reality of the Party and the crushing weight of its bureaucracy. Torn between his outrage at the rampant corruption and hypocrisy of the Communist party, and the need to provide for his family, Nguyen ultimately surrendered to the propaganda machine, censoring his own articles and fabricating statistics to keep his job. Having recently discovered the truth about her husband, Linh's heroic vision of him is now shattered and she decides to leave him rather than betray their shared principles. But soon, she too must confront the realities of a country where power has corrupted even love, where fear has silenced all but the bravest, and only flatterers and opportunists survive.

BSLW RECAT 2023