Thứ Năm, 5 tháng 3, 2026

Memoirs of Phạm Duy, A Vietnamese Musician in a Turbulent Century

 Coming of Age in the North (1921-1945)


Memoirs of Phạm Duy, a Vietnamese Musician in a Turbulent Century


EDITED BY ERIC HENRY

TRANSLATED BY ERIC HENRY

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Memoirs of Phạm Duy, A Vietnamese Musician in a Turbulent Century tells the story of the triumphs, scandals, and adventures of Vietnam's most prolific songwriter. Born in 1921, Phạm Duy came of age during colonial rule, joined the anti-French resistance, and later became a major voice of the southern Republic before coming to the United States as an exile after 1975. This four-volume memoir, translated into English by Eric Henry with clarity and care, spans a century of Vietnamese history as lived, sung, and questioned by an unrelenting truthteller dedicated to freedom of expression. 

Henry's nuanced translation captures the complexities of a life lived across regimes, ideologies, and continents. Throughout Memoirs of Phạm Duy, A Vietnamese Musician in a Turbulent Century, readers encounter vivid recollections of artists, revolutionaries, exiles, and everyday life—offering an intimate view into the intersections of politics, culture, and personal memory in Vietnam's turbulent twentieth century. The result is a rare cultural archive, rich with song lyrics, political critique, and reflections on identity, exile, and artistic expression.

At once deeply personal and historically expansive, this memoir is an essential record of modern Vietnam and its global resonances.

Eric Henry is Senior Lectutrer Emeritus inthe Deparptment of Asian Studies at the university of North Carolina. He is the translator of The Garden of Eloquence.

  1. Phạm Duy's iconic memoir achieves a rare feat: by humanizing the tumult of Vietnam's twentieth century, it reminds us that not all were its captives. An essential and timely translation.

    Charles Keith, author of Subjects and Sojourners

    An important twentieth-century Vietnamese musician recounts his role in the new music that emerged in the 1940s with a storehouse of detail about poets, composers, performers, and songs, a youth uninterested in the political events filling nearly every other book about modern Vietnam.

    K. W. Taylor, author of A History of the Vietnamese
    1. ISBN13: 9781501785214

      Publication date: 05/15/2026

      Pages: 336

      Illustrations: 10 b&w halftones

      Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0 in