Europe is in flames. Nazis are at the gates of the city, and the Chernofsky family's only chance for escape rests firmly on the slim shoulders of seventeen-year old Lilli.
With war at their doorstep, Lilli Chernofsky flees Lithuania with her brother Aaron and a group of yeshiva students.
Along with other jewish refugees, Lilli makes a home in the ghettos of Shanghai. Though they managed to escape the horrors in Europe, they are now faced with starvation, subhuman conditions, and violence at the hands of Japanese soldiers in Shanghai.
Lilli Chernofsky provides a portal to history, a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people in tragic circumstances. The mystery of who people really are, what they will do in adversity, survive honorably or by betraying others, is at the novel's heart, but it is young Lilli's startling metamorphosis from sheltered teen to unwavering heroine that is its cri de coeur.
THE QUEEN OF ANNAM'S
DAUGHTER
What is it like to leave your native country and language in order to save your life? Anh Troung knows. She was a street-smart girl in war-torn Vietnam, barely made it out of the chaos of Saigon before it fell, and here she is in California, where the sun always shines and everyone is mellow, everone is easy, everyone can be figured out. She learns fast. She hustles and cajoles and finds love. Maybe she speaks a funny English and maybe she sometimes pushes too hard, but compared to Vietnam, America is easy. Until she realizes that someone from her past is trying to destroy everyone she loves and it will take all her smarts to figure out who it is.
PRAISE FOR
GOODBYE, SAIGON
"Exuberant.....performs the miraculous by making us laugh even as we cry....Not a word rings false, not a moment feels untrue...a book to be treasured, to be read and read again."
--New York Times Sunday Book Review
"Goodbye, Saigon has more to say about California’s changing mores, increasing violence, cultural disharmony and, in the end, brave new world than many authoritative nonfiction books published today..indelible and endearing.”
-- San Francisco Chronicle
"Generous of spirit, as full of loss as it is of gain, the ultimate good luck here is the reader's."
-- Los Angeles Times
“An audacious book, a leap of empathy and imagination in which a writer attempts to enter an alien culture and to see the lives of its inhabitants through their own eyes. Nina Vida creates two bold and feisty protagonists whom we must care about, even as we accompany them into disaster.”
--Marge Piercy
"Head-spinning, hilarious and haunting."
-- Glamour
"Powerhouse fiction."
-- Kirkus Reviews
“Truong Anh is an original. She is a new variety of heroine – the street-smart, funny, poignant Vietnamese survivor in America. Read her story.”
--Lynn Freed, Author of The Bungalow
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FILM RIGHTS OPTIONED BY RICHARD ZANUCK AND PURCHASED BY 20TH CENTURY FOX
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CHILDREN OF GUERRERO
MEXICO is in the news. But what do we know about this country on our border and its explosive history?
CHILDREN OF GUERRERO fills in the blanks, weaves fiction and fact, exposes exploitation by outsiders and revolution by its citizens. From 1511 when a Spanish ship is wrecked on the coast of Yucatan to Emperor Maximilian's attempt to sit on the Mexican throne to the upheaval of the student rebellion in Mexico City a hundred years later, the novel exposes Mexico's witches' brew of intgrigue and corruption as well as the beauty of the land and the bravery of its citizens.
CHILDREN OF GUERRERO tells a tale of love and deception that reverberates to this day.
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GOODBYE, SAIGON AND
CHILDREN OF GUERRERO
NOW AVAILABLE ON SALE ON KINDLE FOR $2.99.
Originally published by Crown
Copyright NINA VIDA All rights reserved.