The sun had not yet risen, but above the grassy plain, the mist was already starting to drift away. The village of Diem–a cluster of shacks along the highway–was emerging from the night.
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'The war was almost over. On the other side of the plain, the enemy artillery base lay silent; no reconnaissance plane had yet appeared on the horizon.'
The sun had not yet risen, but above the grassy plain, the mist was already starting to drift away. The village of Diem–a cluster of shacks along the highway–was emerging from the night.
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‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
Bao Ninh was born in 1952 in Hanoi. During Vietnam’s ‘American War’, he was one of five hundred soldiers to serve in the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade, only ten of whom survived. His novel The Sorrow of War was published in 1993.
More about the author →‘I wanted to see a communist victory, which I presumed to be inevitable. I wanted to see the fall of a city.’
‘When I look at a word, I can see the thing inside it. The ear inside heart.’
‘I wrote ‘valley’ when I meant ‘longing’ / Your laugh a river A trout kind of green.’
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