Synopses & Reviews
A RARE CLOMPSE INTO THE SOUL OF VIT NAM
In her deeply moving memoir of Viet Nam, Lady Borton presents the "American war" from the view of the courageous peasants on the ground, underneath the B-52's and Agent Orange-stripped trees. Their extraordinary stories are of a kind we have not heard before: stories of women who smuggled weapons under vats of fish sauce, concocted camouflage from banana leaves, dug tunnels, carried messages through enemy territory, gave away their children to keep them safe, all the while tending to the daily work of village life-providing food, burying and visiting the dead, and observing religious holidays. Drawing on twenty-five years of work in Viet Nam, Borton achieves an unprecedented intimacy with its people and lets their voices set the tone of conciliation and renewal. Without calling attention to herself, Borton-the first westerner allowed to live in a Vietnamese village since the war's end-suffuses her account with a deep respect for all those we left behind.
Review
"These are not the stories of generals and diplomats and statesmen, but of the nameless, faceless peasants we interrogated, defoliated, relocated, bombed, shot, bent, folded, stapled, and mutilated, all the while imagination that we could either win their hearts and minds or break their will. [Borton's]...graceful eloquence would touch the heart of a stone." -The Washington Post
"Rich and uplifting." -The Detroit Free Press
About the Author
LADY BORTON is the author of Sensing the Enemy, a memoir of her work in a refugee camp for the Vietnamese boat people. She was the person who escorted the first journalists to the scene of the massacre at My Lai. Formerly the field director of Quaker Service-Viet Nam in Hanoi, she now lives on a small farm in Milfield, Ohio.