In 2005 one hopes that creative works of fiction no longer suffer censorship and that authors are no longer banned or incarcerated for expressing their personal opinions against governmental policies. This is, of course, a naïve hope.

One inspiring author comes to mind: Duong Thu Huong, born in Vietnam in 1947. Huong enjoyed her youth in a nomadic theatre troupe and trained at a school for entertainers. At twenty, however, she joined the Communist Youth Brigade and fought during the Vietnam War; she was expelled from the Party in 1991 after persistently advocating human rights and democratic reform in her country. She was then arrested and imprisoned without trial for eight months. ‘My chosen path today is to struggle for a democratic society’, she said in an interview with Radio Free Asia (July 2000). She was particularly alarmed when President Bush received Vietnam’s Prime Minister Phan Van Khai at the White House in June, a reception which caused a stir among many of her generation, Vietnam and American – for respectively different reasons.

After working in the film industry as a screenwriter and as a journalist, she turned to writing fiction. Due to her political activism (she was nearly assassinated twice), her six novels are banned in Vietnam. Although not overtly political, her fiction continually portrays the disillusionment of people trapped in a society without civic freedoms. In his review of Memories of a Pure Spring in 2000, Richard Bernstein of The New York Times explained this phenomenon: ‘One reads it certainly for its politics, but even more for the depth and complexity of its characters who strive to define themselves in a world that still puts everything and everybody in one or another category of ideology and national aspiration’. Her most recent book, No Man’s Land was published in America by Hyperion in April 2005. Like many of her other works – Beyond Illusions (1987, translated 2002), Paradise of the Blind (1988, translated 1991), Fragments of a Life (1989), Novel without a Name (translated 1995), and Memories of a Pure Spring (translated 2000) - No Man’s Land is set in rural Vietnam at the end of the war and dissects life under one of the few Communist regimes remaining. The novel focuses on a young woman, Mein, who is happily married to a hard-working farmer, but soon learns that her husband, who reportedly died a martyr for the cause, is actually still alive and returning to claim her. She is forced to give up her happy life and family to live with her first husband who has been reduced to abject poverty and is physically and psychologically marred by his trials during the war. Without descending into sentimentality, Huong offers a tightly constructed and hard-biting tale of choiceless choices – over war and peace, love and honour, family and state – as endured under a regime of strict Communist codes.

In 1994, Huong was offered political asylum in France where she made one of her first visits outside Vietnam. She kindly refused, saying passionately that her country needed her. She would return, she said, ‘to spit in the face of the regime’.

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Our Summer 2005 issue covers a wide range of subjects, with particular emphasis on international politics and relations. Dominik Zaum’s essay on the current state of nation building in Iraq is not simply a review of Noah Feldman’s new book, What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building, but also an informed examination of the broader issues of state-building and policy making in post-conflict nations. The issue includes three articles focusing on India today. Elizabeth Angell’s review of Amitava Kumar’s memoir Husband of a Fanatic: A Personal Journey through India, Pakistan, Love, and Hate explores one man’s inter-racial and inter-cultural experiences during the Kargil border conflict between India and Pakistan in the summer of 1999. Engaging with the topics of India’s post-colonial history and national security, Priyanjali Malik reviews a new book, Security Beyond Survival: Essays for K. Subrahmanyam, dedicated to one of India’s top strategic thinkers. Rahul Rao examines an eclectic reader of essays on the textual essence of Indian legal codes. Other politically related articles include a fresh look at Noam Chomsky’s 1970 polemic Government in the Future (reprinted after 25 years) and given the recent parliamentary election, an appropriately timed review of Anthony Seldon’s biography of Tony Blair. Moving from politics to performance, the Oxonian Review is delighted to present an extensive interview with classical tenor Ian Bostridge, who shares with Ditlev Rindom his passion for music, especially Schubert, and his interest in the intersection between music and the mind. Books reviewed in this issue include Miriam Toews’ new novel, A Complicated Kindness; David Constantine’s new collection of short stories, Under the Dam; Charles Trevelyan and the Great Irish Famine, Robin Haines’s reexamination of the influence of the Head of the Treasury in the 1840s; and Geoffrey Tyack’s book on post-World War Two Oxford architecture, released for the 450th anniversary of St John’s College. The issue is rounded out by an Arts section including reviews of recent films Downfall and Tarnation, avant-garde theatre work by the Tiger Lillies, as well as dance performances by the The Rambert Dance Company and Compagnie Kafig.