The Zenith: A Novel

"Yes, it was published in English in 2013 by Dương Thu Hương, a great Vietnamese novelist, and it was quite an explosive book. During the Vietnam War , Dương Thu Hương served with a North Vietnamese Youth Brigade. After the war, she advocated freedom of expression and was arrested and imprisoned without trial in 1991 for allegedly attempting to send confidential documents out of the country. She now lives in exile in Paris. It’s a historical novel that reads like a gripping political thriller. She takes on a controversial subject: the inner circle of Ho Chi Minh, president of North Vietnam from 1945 until his death in 1969, and hero of Vietnamese independence. He was beloved by millions in communist North Vietnam but vilified by the South. He was a mysterious personage and his life, especially in exile, is still shrouded in controversy and mystery. A biography published in 2000 by the American diplomat and academic William J. Duiker remains the only definitive work in English about his life. “When I met General Giáp, the strategist who won the wars against the French and the Americans, his first words were to thank me for what I had done for Vietnam” Ho Chi Minh is considered the father of the nation, and is known as ‘Bác Hồ’ or Uncle Ho. And to have Dương Thu Hương write an imagined account of his inner circle in communist North Vietnam in the late 50s and 60s that includes rape, murder and political intrigue, is quite radical. But, firstly, it’s a great novel to read. Secondly, it should spur greater investigation into this period of history, especially Ho Chi Minh’s inner circle, many of whom were hard-line Maoists . So, it is a novel but it’s well worth a read for anyone who wants an insight into that period. There isn’t much else, in English at least. He had a peripatetic life. At twenty, he left Vietnam—reportedly because of his anti-French sentiments—and travelled the world working on ships. He stopped off in several countries, including the United States and the UK. In 1913 he worked at the Carlton Hotel, in Haymarket in London. It was in Paris that he first joined the Socialist Party, became a member of the Intercolonial Union affiliated with the French Communist Party and left for Moscow where he was employed by the Communist International. He launched the Indochinese Communist Party in exile in Hong Kong in 1930. There he was saved by the British, I only learned recently. The French wanted to execute him and the British intervened. During World War II, he returned to Vietnam as the leader of the Viet Minh, the communist-led national alliance that fought the war of independence from the French (1946–1954). In Vietnam, he is a saintly and celibate hero dedicated to the revolution."