“Ha evokes a visceral image of Vietnam even as much of the text is rendered in dialogue; the country can hold both flocks of parrots ‘preening their plumage and eating in a frenzy that the ground was a canvas of colors—blue, green and red’ and ‘shreds of flesh and clothing…skewered on branches.’ A vivid study of a country’s fraught history and how its people struggled to make sense of it.”—Kirkus Review
“Centering on a Vietnamese intelligence officer's years-long ordeal in communist reformation camps, The Afterlife of a Threadbare Jester offers a heartrending and an illuminating look at the Vietnam War and its aftermath. War, literature, religion, politics, loyalty—they are all expertly interrogated through the protagonist's compelling voice and the memorable cast of characters he encounters. Despite the struggle and suffering, the story never veers into the sentimental or cynical. Instead it returns, again and again, to the complexities of the human heart and its will to endure. A moving, unforgettable, and enlightening must-read.”—Award Citation
While reading this outstanding collection of stories, I couldn't help
being overcome by the mysteries of contrast. Dark versus light, rich
versus poor, East versus West, life versus death, heartbreaking sorrow
against breathtaking beauty. No two stories are the same and yet the
human condition is universal. In the minutiae of life can be found the
most profound sadness and the most buoyant life.
Such are the
writings of this author. Having read his other story collections, I know
I'm going to run the gamut of every emotion of the human condition it
is possible to feel. That's what makes him such an astounding writer.
You can only stand in awe of such masterful prose.–Goodreads
“Poling oars at rest crisscrossed one another, soaring from the water in pale blue ripples as blue as cooking smoke, thinly drifting, that palled the river.”A whirlwind of a book that will leave you breathless, All the Rivers Flow Into the Sea, by Khanh Ha is the kind of collection that short story lovers dream about. This is an absolutely beautiful piece of literature that should be thought of as a modern classic.–Goodreads
“In the ash-blue twilight beyond the clearing where bushes grew wild, she saw humps of graves plagued by needle grass and false daisy. The white, small flowers glimmered.” Set mostly in Vietnam, All The Rivers Flow Into The Sea, is a book of short stories by the very talented, award-winning author, Khanh Ha. These stories build as you read through them, ending in the title story about a young couple from different worlds who fight the odds to be together. Picturesque and poignant, these short stories have everything that a reader could want. You will find yourself not only tearing up at times but also bursting into laughter and maybe even fits of anger as you read through this one-of-a-kind book.–Goodreads
Then there was the bad weather. It would come in one day when the fall was over. You would have to shut the windows in the night against the rain and the cold wind would strip the leaves from the trees in the Place Contrescarpe. The leaves lay sodden in the rain and the wind drove the rain against the big green autobus at the terminal and the Café des Amateurs was crowded and the windows misted over from the heat and the smoke inside. It was a sad, evilly run café where the drunkards of the quarter crowded together and I kept away from it because of the smell of dirty bodies and the sour smell of drunkenness. The men and women who frequented the Amateurs stayed drunk all of the time or all of the time they could afford it; mostly on wine which they bought by the half-liter or liter. Many strangely named apéritifs were advertised, but few people could afford them except as a foundation to build their wine drunks on. The women drunkards were called poivrottes which meant female rummies.
The Café des Amateurs was the cesspool of the rue Mouffetard, that wonderful narrow crowded market street which led into the Place Contrescarpe. The squat toilets of the old apartment houses, one by the side of the stairs on each floor with two cleated cement shoe-shaped elevations on each side of the aperture so a locataire would not slip, emptied into cesspools which were emptied by pumping into horse-drawn tank wagons at night. In the summer time, with all windows open, you would hear the pumping and the odor was very strong. The tank wagons were painted brown and saffron color and in the moonlight when they worked the rue Cardinal Lemoine their wheeled, horse-drawn cylinders looked like Braque paintings. No one emptied the Café des Amateurs though, and its yellowed poster stating the terms and penalties of the law against public drunkenness was as flyblown and disregarded as its clients were constant and ill-smelling.
All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter, and there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed doors of the small shops, the herb sellers, the stationery and the newspaper shops, the midwife—second class—and the hotel where Verlaine had died where you had a room on the top floor where you worked.
—Ernest Hemingway (A Good Café on the Place St.-Michel)
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