title: Mourning Headband for Hue: An Account of the Battle for Hue, Vietnam 1968
author: Nha Ca
description: ...[A] searing eyewitness account...It makes for an intimateand disturbingaccount of war at its most brutal told from the point of view of civilians trying to survive the maelstrom. (<i>VVA Veteran</i>)<br /><br /><P>For Nh Ca, remembrance is a portion of survival , recognizing those with no voice, no popular history to peddle.</P> (<i>On the Seawall</i>)<br /><br />On the whole, scholars will find this memoir invaluable for understanding the American War in Vietnam as an internal civil war between the Vietnamese. (<i>H-Net Reviews H-War</i>)<br /><br />Nha Ca relates countless moments of terror she and her extended family members suffered and shares stories told to her by others who faced similarly dire circumstances. Its an intimateand disturbingaccount of war at its most brutal, told from the point of view of civilians trying to survive the maelstrom. (<i>Publishers Weekly</i>)<br /><br />To this day, her harrowing accountof war casualties, searches and arrests, ideological purgesgenerates intense debates about accountability during war time. (<i>Shelf Awareness</i>)<br /><br />The authors narrative burns with firsthand accounts, her own and those of others who shared their stories, as they all were trapped in blasted houses, churches and makeshift shelters, wounded, starving, sick and overrun by the Communists and their squads of vengeful executioners...[A] searing first-person account of the misery of war visited upon her family, neighbors and countrymen, caught in senseless, chaotic horror...A visceral reminder of wars intimate slaughter. (<i>Kirkus Reviews</i>)<br /><br />In her translation of A Mourning Headband for Hue, Olga Dror has traversed the terrain of contemporary Vietnamese literature, selected a wonderful gem, Gii Khn S Cho Hu by Nh Ca, and made it accessible to an English readership. . . . It is simultaneously an account of the experience of civilians trapped in a city under siege and a literary response to the brutalities of war by a leading poet and writer of South Vietnam. (<i>Journal of Vietnamese Studies</i>)<br /><br />A work of great historical and literary value ideal for use in the classroom, Mourning Headband for Hue highlights overlooked voices and facets of the Vietnam War, meriting inclusion among the classics of wartime fiction. (<i>Southeast Asian Studies</i>)<br /><br />Mourning Headband for Hue is Nh Ca's searing condemnation of the brutality of war. (<i>Michigan War Studies Review</i>)<br /><br />This is a worthy addition to accounts that help readers understand the Vietnam War. . . . Highly recommended. (<i>Choice</i>)
zlib_text: Mourning Headband 
  for  Hue
  Mourning Headband for Hue is a personal account of what happened 
  in Hue during the month-long occupation of parts of the city by 
  communist troops during the 1968 Tết Offensive, a very bloody 
  episode of the Vietnam War that inflicted extremely heavy losses 
  on the civilian population in both human and material terms. 
  Stranded in Hue where she had come to visit her family, the 
  author found herself face-to-face with the war. . . . Horrified, she 
  recounts her experiences day by day as if weeping and wailing 
  in the remembrance of the atrocities she has seen and heard. It 
  is indeed a book laden with blood, sweat, and tears but records 
  events without distorting them. With explanatory information 
  on many persons and events provided by the translator, the book 
  is a valuable document for the history of the Vietnam War.
  Nguyen The Anh, Rector of Hue University at the time of 
  the events described in this book; professor emeritus, Ecole 
  Pratique des Hautes E