Two Hamlets in Nam Bo : Memoirs of Life in Vietnam Through Japanese Occupation, the French and American Wars and Communist Rule, 1940-86

The author was born in 1940 and spent his childhood in two small villages, the paternal and the maternal, in Southern Vietnam: Binh Chuan and Tuy An (An Phu).

The villages were deeply affected by the powerful political events of the next 50 years.

In this memoir, David Lan Pham writes of what he saw, heard and knew, providing a social history of the country.

Readers will learn about a people who have endured separation, dictatorship, carnage, persistent suffering and poverty, all the while yearning for independence and prosperity.

Included are many stories - some funny, some heartbreaking - that reveal how the Vietnamese people lived, as well as their thoughts on war, on the French, Japanese and Americans, on the nationalist and communist governments, and on escape.