In the Crossfire

The work of Ngo Van is tragically under-appreciated in the English-speaking world. His book, Vietnam 1920-1945, he first full account of the anti-colonial movement in Vietnam from 1920 to 1945, and created quite a stir when it was first published in France in 1995. An abridged English translation of the book appeared later that year, but it failed to capture the flavor and intensity of the original. This translation of Van's two-volume memoir (orginally published as Au Pays de la Cloche fêlée in 2000) will go a long way towards acquainting English readers with this important author and will help to dispel the myth surrounding the struggle for independence and the subsequent rise to power of Ho Chi Min and his Stalinist regime. Van was involved with the Trotskyist left in Vietnam in the 30s and 40s, and worked closely with Ta Thu Thau, the Vietnamese Trotskyist leader, but unlike Ta Thu Thau, he survived the Stalinist massacre of the Trotskyists in Vietnam in 1945. Van escaped from Vietnam in 1945 and began a life of exile in Paris, where he became active in the French radical left and in the Surrealist movement. He made his living as a worker in the factories there until the mid 1990s, when friends in the orbit around Surrealist historian Maurice Nadeau encouraged him to write a book detailing his experiences.