Hanoi Adieu

A Bittersweet Memoir of a Frenchman in Indochina

Author: Mandaley Perkins

Paperback

Michel L'Herpiniere is a teenager when he arrives in Indochina in the years before WWII. He falls in love with the country and the people, but gradually becomes aware that what is an idyll for the French is not seen the same way by the local population. This is a memoir of a young man growing up during the years of French rule in Vietnam.

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Michel L'Herpiniere arrived in Hanoi as a teenager in the years before World War II. He fell in love with the country and the people, but gradually became aware that not all those around him felt the same way. Michel's story, brilliantly recreated by his stepdaughter Mandaley Perkins, is inevitably entwined with the history of Vietnam: the rise of the nationalist movement; the Japanese occupation; the revolution by the Vietminh and the United States' refusal to aid a 'colonial regime'; and the chaotic and tragic aftermath of World War II. In the heat and passion of the time, nothing and no-one can be read on the surface. Hanoi, Adieu is an intimate and compelling journey through the exotic and tumultuous final decades of French Indochina, as well as a moving story of love and loss. Shortlisted for the 2006 New South Wales Premier's Award for Non-fiction "an exquisitely beautiful and most beguiling story" Judges' comments

About the Author

Mandaley Perkins is the author of Hanoi, adieu, and Tropic Tide. Her love of writing was inspired by a fascination for South-East Asia and its history, and the experiences of her own family during World War 2 and beyond. Her books among other things explore the fall of the French Empire in Indochina, and the British Empire in Singapore and Malaya, weaving the history through the personal experience of those who were there.From the Japanese invasions in World War 2 to the postwar communist insurrections in Malaya and Vietnam, Mandaley was absorbed by how the different approaches taken by the French and the British in their colonial possessions led to such different outcomes, how decisions made far away in Paris, London and Washington affected the lives of the people, and how what happened in those post war years resonates with events unfurling in the world today.Hanoi, adieu was shortlisted for the 2006 NSW Premier's Literary Award for non-fiction (Douglas Stuart Prize).Mandaley lives in Brisbane with her husband and three children.