Saigon

"In this anthology, observers of Saigon and its peoples, from the earliest interactions of Europeans and Vietnamese up to the present day, highlight a wide variety of moments in the history of this Indo-Chinese level. Taking their place alongside excerpts from Graham Greene's political insights in The Quiet American and Marguerite Duras's delicate evocation of racial relations in her celebrated novel The Lover, are descriptions of the grand funeral of the Bishop of Adran, John Thompson's memories of a Chinese herbal healer, the story of an evening during which the Tsarevitch of Russia visited the city and swept Saigon society off its feet. Also included here are images from the darker side of the colonial system, including opium and prostitution, and discussions of more modern concerns the nationalism of Vietnamese intellectuals, explorations of three decades of war with the French, the Americans, then the Chinese, and finally pictures from Ho Chi Minh City, the new Saigon after the economic restructuring known as doi moi."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.