The Sorrow of War: A searing Vietnam War novel set between the battlefields of 1969 and post-war Hanoi.

Bao Ninh

Random House, Feb 29, 2012 - Fiction - 240 pages

Kien searches the Jungle of Screaming Souls to recover the dead, haunted by the day in 1969 when napalm destroyed his battalion.

He knows the area well – this was where, in the dry season of 1969, his battalion was obliterated by American napalm and helicopter gunfire. Kien was one of only ten survivors. This book is his attempt to understand the eleven years of his life he gave to the Vietnam War.

Drawing on Bao Ninh’s own service in the North Vietnamese army, The Sorrow of War reveals the lasting psychological cost of survival.

About the author

Bao Ninh was born in Hanoi in 1952. During the Vietnam war he served with the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade. Of the five hundred who went to war with the brigade in 1969, he is one of ten who survived. A huge bestseller in Vietnam, The Sorrow of War is his first novel.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Sorrow of War: A searing Vietnam War novel set between the battlefields of 1969 and post-war Hanoi.
• Author: Bao Ninh
• Translated by: Frank Palmos, Phan Thanh Hao
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Random House, 2012
• ISBN: 1448105595, 9781448105595
• Length: 240 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Biographical & Autofiction; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Historical / 20th Century / Post-World War II; Fiction / War & Military