"Drama, romance, tragic history in SE Asia? I’m there! I re-read it frequently. Particularly when visiting Vietnam."

"I wrote my thesis on this prophetic Graham Greene novel about the dangers of American involvement in Vietnam, set in the 1950s before most people knew we were operating in Vietnam at all. In a very jaded, British way, Greene points out the dangers of well-intentioned interventions."

"As a war correspondent, I have read many of the classic eyewitness accounts. I bought this book when I visited Vietnam in 1997. It’s one of the rare novels about that terrible war written from their perspective by a North Vietnamese student. It’s brutal, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking and desperately human. It’s also vital to remember that as much as the U.S. suffered on all fronts, Vietnam came off far, far worse. This book was first translated and sold in the west, ten years before it could be published in Vietnam."

"My draft number was 11. This book made me really appreciate that I didn’t go to Vietnam, and gave me great empathy for veterans."

"It’s first-person interviews giving different perspectives on signing up to go to the Vietnam war, then actual anecdotes from the war itself. It’s brutal"