Hanoi, adieu - an interesting read

Hanoi, adieu - a bittersweet memoir of French Indochina
Mandaley Perkins

A memoir of the fragile beauty and dark undercurrents of the years of French occupation of Vietnam.

Michel L'Herpiniere arrived in Hanoi as a teenager in the years before World War 11.
He fell in love with the country and its people, but gradually became aware that what he saw as an enchanting melange of East and West was not seen the same way by everyone.

Michel's story is inevitably entwined with the history of Vietnam in those years:
the French response to the nationalist movement;
World War 11 and the Japanese occupation;
the rise of the Vietminh and the refusal of the United States to aid 'a colonial regime';
and the political vacuum, chaos and tragedy in the aftermath of the war.

Hanoi, adieu is an intimate and compelling journey through the tumultous last decades of French Indochina and the crucial years prior to the Vietnam War. It is also a moving story of a life caught up in historic events, and about family, love and growing up.

Mandaley Perkins is the stepdaughter of Michel L'Herpiniere.