 As her vision matured, Huong's technique permutated seamlessly from Socialist Realism to Social Realism.Other authors—most notably the acerbic, funny, and occasionally misanthropic Lê Minh Khuê—join her as writers of conscience in debunking the Socialist utopia.In place of what the historian Peter Zinoman termed "a canned cheeriness... central to the 'moral building' function of the revolutionary writers" are bleak portraits of a backward, rundown and corrupt society.