In the eyes of a 'TigerGeneral' | Bangkok Post: Arts & Culture

On the cover it's a memoir, the foreword says the book is indebted to its main subject and the copyright page claims it's a work of fiction. The Tiger General is certainly too accurate in its historical, cultural and espionage details for the characters to be entirely invented, and with a complete absorption in time and place difficult to pull off with such precision in fiction.

The 20th century saw probably the most extreme and varied applications of political systems in human history, with Vietnam seeing more than its fair share of colonialist oppression, landlordism, communist upheavals, foreign-backed strongmen and civil and international war.

Against this backdrop is the story of Hai, illegitimate son of a powerful womanising mandarin of the Hue court (who is the subject of a prequel to this book, Mandarin: A Novel of Viet Nam) and a poor village girl. They escape to the capital, where his mother's resourcefulness helps them find sanctuary first in a convent; then in a French family's home, where Hai learns the occupiers' language; and later under a Hanoi bridge, where Hai meets Helene, a mixed-race prostitute with a harelip who becomes his soulmate.