Quyhn Dao was a 'boat person' who arrived in Australia as a refugee in 1979. In her book, she does not describe the politics and military aspects of the war that was waged against the entire Vietnamese people by Ho Chi Minh's regime from 1945 until long after the fall of Saigon in 1975. She shares instead her girlhood memories: her mother's garden, her love of books, the antics of her brothers, the love story of how her parents met. But these are impossible to relate without also recording the impact of the conflict, even in her quiet mountain town of Dalat. The war permeated homelife, family connections, schooling, books, clothing, music, food - everything.

When the last defences crumbled the regime crushed the spirit of the South Vietnamese. Confiscations, sackings, compulsory labour, imprisonment, torture, people forced to speak against their friends in order to survive, books burned, the value of money deliberately ruined, millions plunged into poverty - the horrors mounts. Yet Dao keeps her focus on what she saw and knew, the quiet affairs of her ordinary life. She writes in a clear calm voice and only occassionally shoots out stinging lines.

'Uncle Ho, the self sacrificing, self denying, self effacing living saint wrote a book to extol his own virtues'. (Ch. 11, about the Chairman's appalling 'poetry' her class is forced to study.)'

I had a strong reaction to this book. I frequently paused in anger , and also with surprise and some sense of shame that there was so much I had not known before. I was a boy when Australia was sending our soldiers to Vietnam. There was antipathy to the war and a pervading idea that it was the USA's self made disaster and nothing to do with us. I shared that feeling, and as my 18th birthday approached I hoped my name would not be drawn in the ballot for National Service in Vietnam. After reading Quynh Dao's memoir I now feel, 40 years too late, that most of what I thought I knew about Vietnam was badly misinformed.

The Foreword is by Malcolm Fraser, the Prime Minister of Australia who welcomed in refugees who had taken the enormous risk of fleeing the disaster.

'Hundreds of thousand of Boat People never reached friendly shores. They died by drowning, of hunger, thirst or rape. Thousands of young women and girls were kidnapped by pirates, never to be seen again. (Ch. 13).'

Malcolm Fraser reminds us that, 'Australia is a much better country for having opened its door to refugees and asylum seekers from all around the world. So many have contributed so much, to a better Australia.'

I highly recommend reading Tales from a Mountain City by Quynh Dao. It was shortlisted for The Asher Literary Award and Wlliam Saroyan International Prize for Writers. ( )