Set in postwar Vietnam, Paradise of the Blind follows Hang as she travels from Hanoi to Moscow, reflecting on her family’s history and the broader social upheavals that shaped it.

Through the intertwined lives of her mother and aunt, the novel traces the long tail of land reform, political loyalty, and personal sacrifice, showing how ideology filters down into domestic life—often unevenly, often destructively.

Rather than treating history at scale, Duong Thu Huong keeps the focus close: food, memory, obligation, and resentment become the mediums through which larger political forces are felt. Banned in Vietnam, the novel reads as both a critique of revolutionary aftermath and a record of what gets carried forward, materially and emotionally, across generations.

First Perennial edition, 2002 (paperback). Light general wear with some edgewear; clean internally with no major defects visible.