Kien

Kien is the novel's central character. He is a North Vietnamese soldier fighting in the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. The narrative chronicles his experiences before, during, and after the war, repeatedly moving back and forth between his youth, young adulthood as a soldier, and postwar maturity.

Kien's youth is troubled due to the lack of connection between his artist father and Communism-indoctrinated mother and romantic due to his idealization of his childhood sweetheart Phuong. His young adulthood is marked by increasingly desperate struggles, both physical and moral, to survive as a soldier and his human being. His adult life is marked by similar struggles, with his traumatized efforts to integrate both youth and young adulthood into some kind of livable postwar existence. These efforts manifest primarily in his attempts to write a book about his experiences, which have proven to be unsuccessful. Kien ultimately disappears...