Word: duong
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...shells left. I ordered the gunner to fire one at the gate. But it misfired. So I decided we would just drive through the gates into the palace and raise our flag." Inside the palace, some South Vietnamese officials had shown up to attend the swearing-in of Duong Van Minh's government (he had barely had time to select a Cabinet). But Minh was at the gates waiting to greet NVA troops. He and his entourage, however, scurried inside when tank 843's gunner fired his single shot...
Moreover, Thieu would not turn over power to Duong Van Minh. "Big" Minh, as he was universally known, was a former general who headed what he described as a neutralist "third force" and was acceptable to the communists. But Thieu chose to follow the South Vietnamese constitution, and yielded power to Vice President Tran Van Huong, who was 71, ailing and nearly blind. Huong did call for a cease-fire and peace negotiations, but vowed, if the North refused, to fight "until the troops are dead or the country is lost...
Limits remain, though. The press is still tightly censored, and outspokenness is punished. Duong Thu Huong, whose 1988 novel Paradise of the Blind portrayed the communist system as exploitative and corrupt, spent six months in jail in 1991 and remains under surveillance. Two of the country's most prominent Buddhist prelates are in prison or under house arrest for political activities. Though many of the country's leaders are themselves Buddhists, they are determined to keep religion from undermining their authority...
...four of Duong's novels as well as some shorter works have been banned in Vietnam, even after the Vietnamese Communist Party announced a more relaxed policy towards writers in 1987. In addition to Paradise, works such as Untitled Novel (translated excerpts available in the March 1993 issue of Grand Street magazine) and Beyond Illusions, and other voicings critical of the Hanoi regime earned her imprisonment...
...Paradise of the Blind is not laden with heavy and vengeful political criticism. In fact, people who have regarded her works simply as vehicles for political dissent disappoint Duong. She has written a novel of disillusionment--not only with the corruption and ironies of the Communist Party and society, but also disillusionment with the strength of blood ties so embryonic to Vietnamese culture, with childhood on the poverty-stricken outskirts of Hanoi, with women's sacrifices, and with life. An intensely moving novel, Paradise transcends the boundaries of its setting...