THE RAIN STILL FALLS IN SAIGON: Short Stories

This book is a collection of stories that portray life as it is lived today under the shadow of the repressive and corrupt communist regime that now rules in Vietnam. The characters who live in these pages represent many levels of social class in the early 21st century in Vietnam.The stories illuminate the hardships and the soul-crushing routine of day-to-day life in a society governed by bullying bureaucrats and petty apparatchiks. The reader will meet orphaned children who wander the streets—selling newspapers or lottery tickets, collecting rubbish in exchange for a few spoonfuls of rice. There are stories of honest and patriotic intellectuals who have lost their way in a world that does not value their accomplishments. There are also sympathetic communists who now question their ideology and want to find a better way, but they cannot act for fear of economic hardship and even imprisonment. Another story addresses the issue of young women who have become victims of human trafficking, sold like cattle to rich foreigners. The title story, “The Rain still Falls in Saigon,” describes the return of an expatriate to her native land and her feelings of nostalgia and sadness as she surveys her homeland from an outsider’s perspective. All of the stories reflect the tears that the Vietnamese people have been crying for their country for more than 65 years.Doug BurkeEditor-at-large