ANTHONY GREY & NGUYỄN ƯỚC
TRĂNG HUYẾT
Nguyên văn Lời Mở đầu của A. Grey
Foreword
A message to readers of Trang Huyet
From Anthony Grey
A young Vietnamese friend of mine now studying in England read the new
augmented Vietnamese text of Trang Huyet during the summer of 2004.
She compared parts of it to my original English novel SAIGON, which
forms the core and essence of this new expanded work by fellow co-author
Nguyen Uoc. Since I do not speak or read Vietnamese, I had no idea then
what Uoc had done to my text. He did not consult me before he did the
work nor seek my permission until after he had finished. Even as I write
this message I still do not know in great detail what is contained in the
extra 400 pages he has added — except that there are more changes in the
period after 1945 than in the first half of the story.
I knew from his own explanation to me that Uoc passionately believed that
my novel with his added passages of information and interpretation was
‘the War and Peace novel that the people of Vietnam have been waiting
for.’ He told me in his first communication that he felt it had the power to
‘reconcile and free’ Vietnamese people from the conflicts of their past. I
found myself moved by this conviction and decided on an impulse not to
oppose or take any immediate exception to what Uoc had done.
I was, however, relieved when the young Vietnamese student in England
told me she was very moved by what she had read. ‘I would like to thank
you for writing this book,’ she said. ‘ I have learned so much about my
country and its people that I never knew before. The story’s greatest value,
I think, is that it preserves historical memories in a rapidly changing world
for new generations of Vietnamese. I think it is a very important novel for
the people of Vietnam – and everybody else too.’
In the year 2005, thirty years after the fall of Saigon, our world seems to be
