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War of words: Pham Thanh Tam's new book on Dien Bien Phu. |
PARIS — The French newspaper Le Point ran an article on Tuesday about a book on Viet Nam's 1954 victory in Dien Bien Phu by Vietnamese author Pham Thanh Tam.
War Notebook of a Young Viet Minh Soldier at Dieân Bien Phu (in French: Carnet de Guerre d'une Jeune Viet-Minh a Dien Bien Phu) was published by the France-based Armand Colin Publishing House earlier this month.
The article said that Tam was once a student at the Ha Noi University of Fine Arts who fought for the Viet Minh (Viet Nam League for Independence). Tam wrote the book after seven years at war, when he was just 22 years old, never imagining that his work would ever be published.
Tam tells readers why and how the Viet Nam People's Army defeated the French colonialists at the Dien Bien Phu stronghold.
According to the article, thousands of books have been written about the Indochina War, which ended in defeat for the French colonialists at Dien Bien Phu. However, most of them were written by French war veterans, who expressed their sorrow about the defeat in their writing.
Tam's book gives readers a chance to understand the war and the French colonialists' loss through the eyes of a solider on the other side. — VNS
