01 Sep / Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram, translated by Andrew X. Pham with an introduction by Frances FitzGerald [in Bloomsbury Review]
Already a runaway bestseller in Vietnam, this diary will break your heart – but offer you hope that in the worst of times, we human beings can be miraculously humane.
As a young doctor working for communist Vietnam during the Vietnam War, Thuy Tram is ironically, officially, the “enemy.” But her diary reveals a gentle, nurturing soul who loves her family and her country and abhors the seemingly endless violence and horror she witnesses as an army doctor, trying to somehow piece together the young lives of the soldiers thrust into her care.
The amazing diary, destined to go up in flames, was saved by an American officer – even at the cost of going against U.S. military regulations. For 35 years, he kept the precious diary, eventually returning it to the surviving family of the idealistic Dr. Tram, who was killed in 1970 at just 27. Now available for the first time in English – faithfully translated by award-winning Vietnamese American writer Pham (Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Across the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam and The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars) – Peace is witness to the unjust horrors and countless tragedies of war, a reminder made more pertinent every day.
Readers: Adult
Published: 2007 (United States)