LA NUIT NOUS A SURPRIS by Kien NGUEN

NIGHT CAME UPON US by Kien NGUYEN - Translated from English (U.S.) by Erika Abrams - Éditions Denoël - (9 rue du Cherche Midi, Paris) - 2002 - 398 pages A gripping account by an Amerasian boy (Vietnamese mother and American father) from 8 to 18 years old, starting in 1975, when he is abandoned by his father, along with his mother and brother. A revelation about the Vietnam War... April 30, 1975. Communist troops enter Saigon. Kien Nguyen, eight years old, watches the last American helicopter take off... without him. Abandoned with his mother and brother to a nightmarish existence in a ravaged country, Kien is more exposed than other boys his age: his hair is curly and his eyes are light. As an Amerasian, he is one of those 'unwanted' children that the Vietcong persecutes without appeal. Memoirs of this son who survives despite everything, 'Night Came Upon Us', restores, with the violence of a raging river, the ravages of war and the barbarism of men. Beyond revenge and rising from the rubble, this account offers a gripping vision of human nature. Between The Ashes of Angela and The Empire of the Sun, it lifts the veil of secrecy over a dark page in the history of our contemporary world.