Collection(s) : Rue des Ecoles
Paru le 08/04/2022 | Broché 541 pages
Tout public
foreword by John R. Bondanella
Unknown Father is the English version of the book De Père Inconnu by the same author, and published by L'Harmattan in 2015, with a second edition in 2016. Like the Vietnamese version Cha Vô Danh, also published by L'Harmattan in 2019, this English version is not a literal translation of the French version, but a rewriting by the author himself for an English- speaking audience.
« I was spellbound both by the content and by the writing style. This book looks deeply into the lives of Vietnamese as well as into the soul of Vietnam as a country.
A unique mix of biography, culture, history, and politics, it is important reading for a variety of American and of other English-speaking audiences. It would be very interesting for younger ethnic Vietnamese descended from the diaspora, especially as the Fall of Saigon nears its 50th anniversary. »
John R. Bondanella
Phạm Ngọc Lân was born in 1944 in Saigon. After graduating from Saigon University's Faculty of Pharmacy, he served as a pharmacist in the South-Vietnamese Army from 1969 to 1973. Then he became assistant professor at the same faculty from 1973 to 1980, interrupted by a detention in Communist reeducation camps. In 1980, he left Vietnam with his wife and their two children and resettled In France. He is now retired and lives in a suburb of Toulouse, a southern city of France.
