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Faraway the Southern Sky
A biographical historical fiction retelling of Ho Chi Minh's immigration and radical life in underground Paris in the 1920s
Ho Chi Minh arrived in Paris as a young man, a refugee from political repression, just as World War I was sputtering to a close. When, six years later, he stole out of town on a train bound for the young Soviet Union, he had emerged as the fiery, passionate leader of the Vietnamese independence movement and a founder of the French Communist Party.
He spent these years living under various pseudonyms in a succession of seedy apartments, getting arrested and beaten, working jobs in restaurants and photo shops, writing revolutionary manifestos in the reading room of the Bibliotheque Nationale, and meeting with Maurice Chevalier and Colette, all while being dogged by French spies. Much of what we know about the young man's Paris years is thanks to near-total police surveillance of him.
Joseph Andras recalls Ho Chi Minh's early years and walks Ho's Paris neighborhoods. Searching for traces of the past in the streets of today, the author hears echoes of other angry histories, from terror attacks to tent encampments of the houseless to the protests of the Gilets jaunes.
Ultimately this slim, intensely lyrical, and genre-bending book that blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction becomes a meditation on what could be called the grandeur of the the poor, the free, the outcast, and the rebellious–people who may or may not find a place in history books but without whom history could not be written.
Ho Chi Minh arrived in Paris as a young man, a refugee from political repression, just as World War I was sputtering to a close. When, six years later, he stole out of town on a train bound for the young Soviet Union, he had emerged as the fiery, passionate leader of the Vietnamese independence movement and a founder of the French Communist Party.
He spent these years living under various pseudonyms in a succession of seedy apartments, getting arrested and beaten, working jobs in restaurants and photo shops, writing revolutionary manifestos in the reading room of the Bibliotheque Nationale, and meeting with Maurice Chevalier and Colette, all while being dogged by French spies. Much of what we know about the young man's Paris years is thanks to near-total police surveillance of him.
Joseph Andras recalls Ho Chi Minh's early years and walks Ho's Paris neighborhoods. Searching for traces of the past in the streets of today, the author hears echoes of other angry histories, from terror attacks to tent encampments of the houseless to the protests of the Gilets jaunes.
Ultimately this slim, intensely lyrical, and genre-bending book that blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction becomes a meditation on what could be called the grandeur of the the poor, the free, the outcast, and the rebellious–people who may or may not find a place in history books but without whom history could not be written.
96 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2021
33 people are currently reading
1053 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Andras
10 books79 followersJoseph Andras is the author of the novels De nos frères blessés and Kanaky. Awarded the Prix Goncourt for De nos frères blessés (Tomorrow They Won’t Dare to Murder Us), he refused the prize, explaining his belief that “competition and rivalry were foreign to writing and creation”.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
September 20, 2025
"Upon the range of the west wind, Alone I walk, my heart moved. Scanning afar the Southern Sky I think of my friends." part of a poem written by Ho Chi Minh whilst in China in the 1940's
Joseph Andras has chosen to write about Nguyen Tat Thanh (Ho Chi Minh) a man driven, a man who changed names like he changed shirts, a man who lived in the shadows. It's 1918 and he's just come to Paris to continue his struggle for his country, Vietnam, still an economic tile in France's fabric because Lyon's factories needed the Indochinese silk. So we walk along with Andras and Nguyen in the streets of Paris then and now and see what changed and what remained the same. We go to the places where he lived, worked, spoke and planned.
Why this life in the shadows though, well he was even then a person of interest for the intelligence community. France did not want 'troublemakers' in it's own bosom. Empire builders, the colonisers, usually kept their bad behaviour for the colonies, far away from home where they practiced a more pious and moral tone. So they did not want to be confronted with any whiplash from their deeds in Indochina. "To take possession of a land and redden it with the blood of its inhabitants one needs more than gunpowder and the edge of a blade." So one strives for a moral high ground, turns oneself into a saviour of the uncivilised native, a good justification no?
With Andras we see the political rhetoric, then and now and see so many similarities. We also see surveillance then and how easy the internet has made our own total surveillance. "Comfort rules better than the whip." I wonder how would a current Nguyen fare in today's world, a media storm would be employed for sure. After all we are not what we actually are but what the media, the story, says we are. And history is written by the victors.
An ARC kindly provided by author/publisher via Edelweiss
August 15, 2024
In 'Faraway the Southern Sky' Joseph Andras traces the steps of the young Nguyen Ai Quoc (later known as Ho Chi Minh) in Paris, 1919. He was in his late twenties then and wholly unknown.
Apart from some eye witness accounts and a police report (he was being followed early on) there is not much known about Nguyen's years in Paris. We see him become increasingly politically active, his demands become gradually bolder, his leadership of the 'Annamite' diaspora grow and he is at the right place as the Versailles Treaty is negotiated. The addresses he lived at are known as well and Andras' duly visits them all, so we get an interesting tour through Paris.
The last book I read about the French in Indochina was Eric Vuillard's sarcastic 'An Honourable Exit' about the embarrassing exit. This is set 35 years earlier, but has some similarities, in that it is a very factual account made literary by the inclusion of philosophical questions.
I appreciated Andras' approach more though, because he raises more interesting questions. I was also impressed by the research done and the wide knowledge that I felt held back in order to keep the focus strictly on these early years.
Still, overall, I found myself craving for more information - but clearly that's my fault: I should have read a biography rather than this literary work.
3,5
Apart from some eye witness accounts and a police report (he was being followed early on) there is not much known about Nguyen's years in Paris. We see him become increasingly politically active, his demands become gradually bolder, his leadership of the 'Annamite' diaspora grow and he is at the right place as the Versailles Treaty is negotiated. The addresses he lived at are known as well and Andras' duly visits them all, so we get an interesting tour through Paris.
The last book I read about the French in Indochina was Eric Vuillard's sarcastic 'An Honourable Exit' about the embarrassing exit. This is set 35 years earlier, but has some similarities, in that it is a very factual account made literary by the inclusion of philosophical questions.
I appreciated Andras' approach more though, because he raises more interesting questions. I was also impressed by the research done and the wide knowledge that I felt held back in order to keep the focus strictly on these early years.
Still, overall, I found myself craving for more information - but clearly that's my fault: I should have read a biography rather than this literary work.
3,5
July 12, 2022
Ο Χο Τσι Μινχ νεαρός γυρνάει τα επαναστατημένα κράτη της Ευρώπης και της Ασίας κ ψάχνει να βρει τον εαυτό του, μέσα από την δυναμική των ιδεολογιών και την ετοιμότητα των λαών
Κ ο Andras με ματιές στην πρόσφατη ιστορία, αφήνει μετέωρο το ερώτημα αν θα μπορούσε να υπάρξει κ να ηγηθεί ένας τέτοιος τύπος σήμερα
Κ ο Andras με ματιές στην πρόσφατη ιστορία, αφήνει μετέωρο το ερώτημα αν θα μπορούσε να υπάρξει κ να ηγηθεί ένας τέτοιος τύπος σήμερα
April 14, 2022
Σύντομο αριστούργημα, γραμμένο με οργή, με τρυφερότητα, με ειρωνεία. Ο Χο Τσι Μινχ, όταν ακόμα ονομάζόταν Νγκουγιέν Άι Κουόκ, στις γειτονιές του Παρισιού κατά τις δεκαετίες 1910-1920, ενω αποκτά την ιδεολογική θωράκιση που θα δώσει φωνή σε ένα ολόκληρο έθνος, ή και ολόκληρη ήπειρο, καταπιεσμένων. Γραφή οργισμένη και ασθματική, που φέρνει στο νου τους στίχους και την εκφορά του Zack de la Rocha ή της Keny Arkana. Επίσης, μια απροσδόκητη αναφορά στον Ρίτσο και οι συνταρακτικοί (προφητικοί;) στίχοι του Παζολίνι ως άλλος επικήδειος:
"Δεν θα δεις την κόκκινη σημαία να γίνεται μια σημαία
σαν τις άλλες".
"Δεν θα δεις την κόκκινη σημαία να γίνεται μια σημαία
σαν τις άλλες".
October 17, 2023
Λίγο μου φάνηκε. Δεν με ικανοποίησε ο βηματισμός του όσο τα υπόλοιπα βιβλία του Andras. Θα ήθελα να είναι ένα ογκώδες βιβλίο και να χωρέσει πολύ περισσότερο Χου Τσι Μινχ και ιστορία του ιμπεριαλισμού μέσα στις μητροπόλεις του.
July 8, 2024
Ho Chi Minh's years in Paris which began somewhere around 1918 (but some date to 1917 and others to 1919 is reconstructed in this extended essay in a foot journey across the arrondissements with which he is associated. He is conjured up to the mind's eye as a 28 year old 'indigenes' living in bed-sits and earning a precarious living in different jobs, liaising with other 'Annamites' (the colonial name for the Vietnamese people), hawking a set of 'Demands' addressed to French politicians, calling on them to take heed of the needs of the oppressed.
He has an identity but not a name that sums it up. Sometimes Nguyen Tat Than and then Nguyen Ai Quac, kept under surveillance by French intelligence officers who tried to get a grasp on what he was about by monitoring the people he visited and who visited him, the magazines and journals he subscribed to and the articles and letters he submitted to the press. Of particular importance was the contacts he made with activists in the French left, always trying to persuade them of the importance of making the condition of the colonies a matter of concern for their own drive for progress. The irony of his situation is noted: in Paris he was doing things which would have led to his execution by beheading in his own country.
Andras sees him as a pilgrim - a person "... in league with big ideas: devotion, saintliness, grace, essence, the quest for meaning." The meanderings through the streets of modern day Paris encourages the author to reflect on the big ideas of the current time - the terror attacks of 2015 which raged in parts of the city Nguyen would have been familiar with, the gilets jaunes protests and the racism, and the desire to confront racism which shows up in graffiti across neighbourhoods. The future leader of liberated Vietnam learnt how to represent his cause to an often indifferent and sometime hostile audience during these years. At a conference of the SFIO - the leading socialist organisation in France after the first world war - Nguyen speaks up to the assembled 4,000 delegates, linking the struggle of French workers to the wider Europe and the Russian revolution and the predicament of his own people - the banners adorning the walls of the gathering calling on workers of the world to unite becomes concrete in his 12 minute long contribution.
He has an identity but not a name that sums it up. Sometimes Nguyen Tat Than and then Nguyen Ai Quac, kept under surveillance by French intelligence officers who tried to get a grasp on what he was about by monitoring the people he visited and who visited him, the magazines and journals he subscribed to and the articles and letters he submitted to the press. Of particular importance was the contacts he made with activists in the French left, always trying to persuade them of the importance of making the condition of the colonies a matter of concern for their own drive for progress. The irony of his situation is noted: in Paris he was doing things which would have led to his execution by beheading in his own country.
Andras sees him as a pilgrim - a person "... in league with big ideas: devotion, saintliness, grace, essence, the quest for meaning." The meanderings through the streets of modern day Paris encourages the author to reflect on the big ideas of the current time - the terror attacks of 2015 which raged in parts of the city Nguyen would have been familiar with, the gilets jaunes protests and the racism, and the desire to confront racism which shows up in graffiti across neighbourhoods. The future leader of liberated Vietnam learnt how to represent his cause to an often indifferent and sometime hostile audience during these years. At a conference of the SFIO - the leading socialist organisation in France after the first world war - Nguyen speaks up to the assembled 4,000 delegates, linking the struggle of French workers to the wider Europe and the Russian revolution and the predicament of his own people - the banners adorning the walls of the gathering calling on workers of the world to unite becomes concrete in his 12 minute long contribution.
November 21, 2024
Some of the sharpest and simultaneously most evocative writing ive encountered recently; a really compelling blend of history, geography, and personal narrative tracing ho chi minh’s years in paris alongside the yellow vest protests. And i always love when books blur the reality-narrative line
Read
September 4, 2024Andras kept this reader working to follow Ho's trail through Paris, walking the same streets in the early 1920s and today. The writing, in second person, is often ambiguous about who the 'you' is: Andras himself? the reader? Ho chi Minh ( or Nguyên Tat Thanh "his name back then")? Since Nguyên changed his name constantly to evade the French security spies, 'you' serves to cover all his identities, and all times.
The book is worth the effort. The writing is, I think, deliberately opaque because it is trying to capture the bewilderment and effort of Nguyên as he lands and struggles to survive in a Western country with no resources. As he tries, with no credentials, to convince the diplomats drafting the 1919 Peace Treaty to give some autonomy to Vietnam. As he semi-consciously works to simply mature from a young man into a leader. He barely survived, failed dismally to win any concessions for Vietnam, but gradually gained confidence and wiliness before departing for another education in Moscow.
While Andras doesn't make it easy, I did enjoy the descriptions of the streets, buildings, grimy tiny rooms where he lived, the meetings and publishing history. Also Andras has mined the French security archives on Ho in detail. There is a day by day accuracy to the author's treks along French streets in search of the many, many places he lived, worked and agitated. Along with abrupt switches from the author following the physical shape of the trail today to being Ho in daily life on that street 100 years ago.
I know almost nothing about Ho Chi Minh, so that added to the slow pace of my reading. Andras constantly references events later in Ho's life, so I was often lost. I advise reading a short bio, even Wikipedia, before starting this. Short, but not fast.
A flavor of the writing. Near the end, Andras visits the location where Nguyên helped publish a revolutionary journal in France, which was distributed to the diaspora and back to Vietnam:
The book is worth the effort. The writing is, I think, deliberately opaque because it is trying to capture the bewilderment and effort of Nguyên as he lands and struggles to survive in a Western country with no resources. As he tries, with no credentials, to convince the diplomats drafting the 1919 Peace Treaty to give some autonomy to Vietnam. As he semi-consciously works to simply mature from a young man into a leader. He barely survived, failed dismally to win any concessions for Vietnam, but gradually gained confidence and wiliness before departing for another education in Moscow.
While Andras doesn't make it easy, I did enjoy the descriptions of the streets, buildings, grimy tiny rooms where he lived, the meetings and publishing history. Also Andras has mined the French security archives on Ho in detail. There is a day by day accuracy to the author's treks along French streets in search of the many, many places he lived, worked and agitated. Along with abrupt switches from the author following the physical shape of the trail today to being Ho in daily life on that street 100 years ago.
I know almost nothing about Ho Chi Minh, so that added to the slow pace of my reading. Andras constantly references events later in Ho's life, so I was often lost. I advise reading a short bio, even Wikipedia, before starting this. Short, but not fast.
A flavor of the writing. Near the end, Andras visits the location where Nguyên helped publish a revolutionary journal in France, which was distributed to the diaspora and back to Vietnam:
And so it's here that Nguyên Ai Quoc [another alias] read Michelet and Proudhon to his exiled brothers and that a magazine was put together despite the authorities' obstruction, more or less monthly to tell the truth: a large part all of words threaded together and sometimes drawings, words that the Vietnamese writer felt best to nestle inside humble hearts, not words with which one might embellish brilliant pink lips, not words with which to reduce to silence those who lack them, not words to make fictions to softly pass the time, no, words words to fire one shot only one, at the column, and see a back make like a reed when the wind finally shuts up, straighten, that's right, straighten up, with eyes to follow the act and at last crash into others', into the eyes of those swollen with diplomas and medals, twenty-five cents for these words and a title in French in Chinese in Arabic, going from ship's hold to sunlight, flying covertly to the four corners of the hemisphere, Madagasgar, Dahomey Maghreb Oceania Indochina, and it is said, and you believe it, that in the metropole Annamite workers bought it not knowing anything of the language, of pronouns, auxiliary verbs, of the hard g of "guêpe" and not of "givre," of the words "arpent" and "portefaix," "roulure" and "alambic," "frimas and "ruffian," they bought it simply because they knew that Las Paria had a strong smell, that's right, an aura, resistant, impudent, taking to the streets, and they had their French pals, Lucien Émile or Jaquot, read it to them, this paper, the same that a young man took to Kanaky or Réunion after Nguyên told him to show solidarity with the French people, the working class, and all of the Earth's colonized--and when he came back, this young man, the revoutionary, who moved into this very building before he left France, would ask him to do more. But come on, now these days there's only the blue of a glass window, here, the silence and what you might like to sneak into it.
January 26, 2026
Some of the writing is really good I think I was just a bit put off by the second person address; it kept reminding me of the instagram thing ‘in your 20s you will etc’ which was not so fun.
Interesting tho and probably would’ve been more so had I known more about Ho Chi Minh.
Interesting tho and probably would’ve been more so had I known more about Ho Chi Minh.
June 6, 2024
In this slim novel, Joseph Andras blends fact and fiction while retracing the steps of the young revolutionary the world will later refer to as Hồ Chí Minh. As Andras explains early on, it’s not Hồ that he’s interested in, that is, it’s not a fascination with the President of Vietnam that has set him on this journey. Rather, it’s the young man, the “twenty-nine-year-old knockabout” living, conferring, and strategizing in 1920’s Paris that this book is focused on.
Referencing all manner of sources, including notes written by the spies that tailed Hồ‘s every move, Andras maps out the relevant addresses once associated with future Communist leader. On his way, Andras paints a picture of the Parisian neighborhoods he traverses and makes room to point out the many violent uprisings, attacks, and tragedies that took place in these very streets.
Though there is clear admiration for Hồ’s dedication to the fight to free his people from colonial France, Andras is not hesitant to mention that Hồ‘s own future regime was no stranger to killing civilians, silencing and jailing opponents and critics, and hoarding power at the top.
I found Andras’ sentences to be unwieldy at times, poetic at others. The constant references to different names, dates, and factions made this an occasionally dense read, but the balance of Andras’ second person narration, infused with humor and anger, always brought me around again.
Referencing all manner of sources, including notes written by the spies that tailed Hồ‘s every move, Andras maps out the relevant addresses once associated with future Communist leader. On his way, Andras paints a picture of the Parisian neighborhoods he traverses and makes room to point out the many violent uprisings, attacks, and tragedies that took place in these very streets.
Though there is clear admiration for Hồ’s dedication to the fight to free his people from colonial France, Andras is not hesitant to mention that Hồ‘s own future regime was no stranger to killing civilians, silencing and jailing opponents and critics, and hoarding power at the top.
I found Andras’ sentences to be unwieldy at times, poetic at others. The constant references to different names, dates, and factions made this an occasionally dense read, but the balance of Andras’ second person narration, infused with humor and anger, always brought me around again.
February 18, 2022
Αυτό που μου αρέσει στον Andras είναι ότι γράφει με νεύρο, θυμό και επιθετικότητα για αυτά που τον απασχολούν. Εδώ αναπλάθει το πέρασμα του νεαρού Χο τσι Μινχ από το Παρίσι μπλέκοντας το παρόν, το παρελθόν, τη μνήμη και την ιστορία, το αρχείο και τη προσωπική του ματιά.
May 29, 2024
While I found the historical aspects of Ho Chi Minh's travels and activism to be enlightening, I found the writing to be quite confusing and difficult to follow. I think some of the metaphors were really insightful while others felt repetitive. Overall, I am happy I read something different than I normally would.
August 4, 2024
this is nonfiction, but it deserves 5 stars.
I picked this up at the library, knowing very very little about the history of Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh specifically) and wanting to learn, and I did not expect this. this is lyrical, poetic, in second-person, a look at history through the streets he walked, and a push into the deep end. you are Joseph Andras, the author, and you are following Ho Chi Minh's journey through Paris from 1919 (debatable) to June 13th 1923. the world has changed and you must reconcile the faces that surround you now with the faces that once surrounded him as a young man. you must wrestle with conflicting accounts of his time and character, all the while knowing that the man known as Nguyễn Ai Quốc will one day become Ho Chi Minh and go against many of his ideals that he spoke proudly of in Paris. the themes of identity push through so strongly that i am on the urge of writing a paper. the writing was gorgeous, but definitely something to get used to.
"You try your hardest not to read his story topsy-turvy, that is, on the strength of an ending known to all. This 'success story,' crude, as all of them are, is always around the corner. ... These rejections, these failures, you wish not to grasp in the light of his future victory, not to see these debacles as preludes to his consecration, ... If one enters History, there must be a threshold to cross: a definitive border between two conditions, between those who die and those whom death doesn't kill."
"to destroy the rotten system of exploitation, it takes iron and blood and terror, that, yes, when the enemy's armies are out to get you, the only thing left is to shoot the capitalists and shut down the press in their pay."
"the young man was down-to-earth, practical and empirical, of a type that moves forward with hands outstretched. He would remain like this. There's no text or witness that doesn't confirm it: theory made him sweat, angels dancing on a pin, yawn -- one can still find Leninists, Trotskyists, or Guevarists, but no suffix is attached to the Vietnamese president's name, and that's no coincidence."
I picked this up at the library, knowing very very little about the history of Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh specifically) and wanting to learn, and I did not expect this. this is lyrical, poetic, in second-person, a look at history through the streets he walked, and a push into the deep end. you are Joseph Andras, the author, and you are following Ho Chi Minh's journey through Paris from 1919 (debatable) to June 13th 1923. the world has changed and you must reconcile the faces that surround you now with the faces that once surrounded him as a young man. you must wrestle with conflicting accounts of his time and character, all the while knowing that the man known as Nguyễn Ai Quốc will one day become Ho Chi Minh and go against many of his ideals that he spoke proudly of in Paris. the themes of identity push through so strongly that i am on the urge of writing a paper. the writing was gorgeous, but definitely something to get used to.
"You try your hardest not to read his story topsy-turvy, that is, on the strength of an ending known to all. This 'success story,' crude, as all of them are, is always around the corner. ... These rejections, these failures, you wish not to grasp in the light of his future victory, not to see these debacles as preludes to his consecration, ... If one enters History, there must be a threshold to cross: a definitive border between two conditions, between those who die and those whom death doesn't kill."
"to destroy the rotten system of exploitation, it takes iron and blood and terror, that, yes, when the enemy's armies are out to get you, the only thing left is to shoot the capitalists and shut down the press in their pay."
"the young man was down-to-earth, practical and empirical, of a type that moves forward with hands outstretched. He would remain like this. There's no text or witness that doesn't confirm it: theory made him sweat, angels dancing on a pin, yawn -- one can still find Leninists, Trotskyists, or Guevarists, but no suffix is attached to the Vietnamese president's name, and that's no coincidence."
October 14, 2024
“Faraway the Southern Sky” is a fictious biography of Hồ Chí Minh, or as we only knew him then as, Nguyễn Tất Thành or Nguyễn Ái Quốc in the late 1910s and early 1920s, when he lived in Paris, looking for a way to liberate Vietnam (Tonkin and An-nam at that point). Growing up, other Vietnamese and I had learned in details his journey and yet we were left with strangely little. The man had been made into a legend, a figure, but this short novel with its swift prose wrangled that idea from our heads and forced us to look at Uncle Hồ as a man. He was young once. He was desperate. He roamed the streets and worked tedious, mundane jobs to get by. When we learn history in retrospect, everything felt fast and easy, but Andras’ writing, in true French fashion, was deliberately opaque, leading us through the struggling days of Nguyễn Ái Quốc.
The novel was written from the view of a “you” person as they walk through the Paris neighbourhood. I found the contrast between the modern Paris and Nguyễn’s Paris to be a very unique storytelling method. As I mentioned earlier, we knew very little about his time abroad. Calling this his ‘biography’ is misleading, as it comprises 60% deductions via countless police reports, 30% Parisian streets and their significance in history, and 10% history of a revolution.
According to his identification papers, he was known as Nguyên (Nguyên-Tất-Thanh, Nguyên-Ái-Quấc*, Nguyên-Ái-Quốc, etc…)**. He was closely monitored by French intelligence, who sought to understand his activities by tracking his visitors, his subscriptions to magazines, and the articles and letters he submitted to the press. His connections with leftist activists in France were particularly noteworthy, as he worked to convince them of the necessity to prioritize the plight of the colonies in their own quests for progress.
In Vietnam, we believe in the significance of a name. The name he later chose, Nguyễn-Ái-Quốc, meant “the Nguyễn man who loves his nation.” But what makes this book particularly interesting to me was that it proposes that “Nguyễn-Ái-Quốc” was not a name for just one person, but a group of people. Maybe it’s just the romantic in me, but I find it very chilling when a man, who spent his entire life for his people, becomes the first person who is plural.
The book stays as objective as possible, while also addresses different opinions on Nguyên throughout history. Ministers, European leaders, Indochine governors hated him. Stalin, Mao, and other opposing powers thought he was a coward. Some may believe him to be a skilled manipulator in disguise, because who could play a political game like him? Some thought of him as a warrior monk who loved no women nor men, one who had no vice. But his friends and foes both came to the conclusion that he was immensely single-minded. I think he was immensely loving.
Despite learning very little about Nguyên, what he thought, what he did and sometimes it drove me insanely curious as I subconsciously tried to make him into a character of a novel, I find the distance between the narrator and the man very necessary. Instead, the curiosity is sated by looking outward into the city and hope, even if it’s a desperate attempt, to see what Nguyên saw. And then maybe, maybe, I might understand him better.
And so Paris shimmered into view. And what Paris is is history boiled down into a place. The “you” character looks at every person on the street, at the streets, at the buildings, and wonders if they all knew that their lives were tangled here, just years apart. The red string theory might be right after all, but the string is the tight rope and the unquenched sensation of freedom and liberation.
As the “you” character wanders through the streets of contemporary Paris, they reflect on significant themes of the present, including the 2015 terror attacks that affected areas Nguyên might have walked, the gilets jaunes protests, and the racism evident in graffiti throughout neighborhoods. During these formative years, the future leader of a liberated Vietnam learned how to effectively present his cause to an often indifferent and at times hostile audience.
“Faraway the Southern Sky” is a biography of revolutions, told from the single perspective of a Vietnamese man. Though the book attempted at offering perspectives to make him more human than a saint, his persistence through hardship shines through. It is a short read made by a long research, incredible knowledge on world politics, and great love for the connections between people.
* There are many instances where I noticed the names being ‘misspelled’ and I thought it was my epub lagging, but as I retraced the documents we had left from him, the spellings are all ‘correct’ according to his identification papers. I’m not sure if they were intentionally misspelled or it was due to the evolution of the new (at least at that time) writing system. But I will research more on that later.
** You may see sometimes I use hyphens and sometimes I don’t. Vietnamese is made up of single syllables, but words can be a combination of one or more syllables. Before the modern Vietnamese writing system was introduced, we used a logographic system similar to how Chinese was, so there was no need to indicate. During the 1920s, names as well as nouns were written with a hyphen between them to indicate one complete word. Modern Vietnamese is no longer written with hyphens.
The novel was written from the view of a “you” person as they walk through the Paris neighbourhood. I found the contrast between the modern Paris and Nguyễn’s Paris to be a very unique storytelling method. As I mentioned earlier, we knew very little about his time abroad. Calling this his ‘biography’ is misleading, as it comprises 60% deductions via countless police reports, 30% Parisian streets and their significance in history, and 10% history of a revolution.
According to his identification papers, he was known as Nguyên (Nguyên-Tất-Thanh, Nguyên-Ái-Quấc*, Nguyên-Ái-Quốc, etc…)**. He was closely monitored by French intelligence, who sought to understand his activities by tracking his visitors, his subscriptions to magazines, and the articles and letters he submitted to the press. His connections with leftist activists in France were particularly noteworthy, as he worked to convince them of the necessity to prioritize the plight of the colonies in their own quests for progress.
In Vietnam, we believe in the significance of a name. The name he later chose, Nguyễn-Ái-Quốc, meant “the Nguyễn man who loves his nation.” But what makes this book particularly interesting to me was that it proposes that “Nguyễn-Ái-Quốc” was not a name for just one person, but a group of people. Maybe it’s just the romantic in me, but I find it very chilling when a man, who spent his entire life for his people, becomes the first person who is plural.
The book stays as objective as possible, while also addresses different opinions on Nguyên throughout history. Ministers, European leaders, Indochine governors hated him. Stalin, Mao, and other opposing powers thought he was a coward. Some may believe him to be a skilled manipulator in disguise, because who could play a political game like him? Some thought of him as a warrior monk who loved no women nor men, one who had no vice. But his friends and foes both came to the conclusion that he was immensely single-minded. I think he was immensely loving.
Despite learning very little about Nguyên, what he thought, what he did and sometimes it drove me insanely curious as I subconsciously tried to make him into a character of a novel, I find the distance between the narrator and the man very necessary. Instead, the curiosity is sated by looking outward into the city and hope, even if it’s a desperate attempt, to see what Nguyên saw. And then maybe, maybe, I might understand him better.
And so Paris shimmered into view. And what Paris is is history boiled down into a place. The “you” character looks at every person on the street, at the streets, at the buildings, and wonders if they all knew that their lives were tangled here, just years apart. The red string theory might be right after all, but the string is the tight rope and the unquenched sensation of freedom and liberation.
As the “you” character wanders through the streets of contemporary Paris, they reflect on significant themes of the present, including the 2015 terror attacks that affected areas Nguyên might have walked, the gilets jaunes protests, and the racism evident in graffiti throughout neighborhoods. During these formative years, the future leader of a liberated Vietnam learned how to effectively present his cause to an often indifferent and at times hostile audience.
“Faraway the Southern Sky” is a biography of revolutions, told from the single perspective of a Vietnamese man. Though the book attempted at offering perspectives to make him more human than a saint, his persistence through hardship shines through. It is a short read made by a long research, incredible knowledge on world politics, and great love for the connections between people.
* There are many instances where I noticed the names being ‘misspelled’ and I thought it was my epub lagging, but as I retraced the documents we had left from him, the spellings are all ‘correct’ according to his identification papers. I’m not sure if they were intentionally misspelled or it was due to the evolution of the new (at least at that time) writing system. But I will research more on that later.
** You may see sometimes I use hyphens and sometimes I don’t. Vietnamese is made up of single syllables, but words can be a combination of one or more syllables. Before the modern Vietnamese writing system was introduced, we used a logographic system similar to how Chinese was, so there was no need to indicate. During the 1920s, names as well as nouns were written with a hyphen between them to indicate one complete word. Modern Vietnamese is no longer written with hyphens.
November 7, 2024
This is about Ho Chi Minh when he was living in Paris as a young revolutionary.
He piqued my interest when I took a trip to Saigon last year.However, this is not the right book to delve deeply into him. It`s not a typical biographical novel told chronologically. Rather, the author digresses to lyrically tell more about Paris and the historical figures and events related to Ho Chi Minh´s political awakenings.
Perhaps if you´re a history snob,you could follow the author´s train of thoughts.
He piqued my interest when I took a trip to Saigon last year.However, this is not the right book to delve deeply into him. It`s not a typical biographical novel told chronologically. Rather, the author digresses to lyrically tell more about Paris and the historical figures and events related to Ho Chi Minh´s political awakenings.
Perhaps if you´re a history snob,you could follow the author´s train of thoughts.
June 11, 2024
damn ho chi minh was so cool
July 28, 2024
When reviewing a work in translation if I haven't read the work in the original language (French in this case) I am unsure if my difficulties with the text are with the translation or the original work, whether the translator's translation is a good or a poor one? That is my dilemma here, the subject matter is fascinating - a fictional depiction of a biographer of Ho Chin Minh's time living in Paris. This blurs the lines between fiction and non-fiction, between fiction and biography, between fiction and memoir or travel tale. It is a book about a man who wrote poetry and it cites many poets but does so via translation. And it is a work clearly deeply about the language that was and is used not just in poetry but in specifically political affiliations and groups.
If you are not deeply immersed in to the history of revolutionary thought in the late 1800's and early parts of the 1900's, if you aren't aware of the various individuals in the debates of communism and revolution and Soviet thought (and fellow movements) this book is, I think, a bit cryptic.
I'm glad I read it, not sure I would have described it as a novel, and yet I'm also torn about it as a book and piece of writing. I found much of it stilted, awkward, unnatural, with the phrasings and language use, and form working at times in cross purposes to the work. It is also written in Second Person which is unusual in English and which contributes to the sense that the book reads as an awkward translation. But perhaps it is a good translation of a somewhat awkward book.
If you are not deeply immersed in to the history of revolutionary thought in the late 1800's and early parts of the 1900's, if you aren't aware of the various individuals in the debates of communism and revolution and Soviet thought (and fellow movements) this book is, I think, a bit cryptic.
I'm glad I read it, not sure I would have described it as a novel, and yet I'm also torn about it as a book and piece of writing. I found much of it stilted, awkward, unnatural, with the phrasings and language use, and form working at times in cross purposes to the work. It is also written in Second Person which is unusual in English and which contributes to the sense that the book reads as an awkward translation. But perhaps it is a good translation of a somewhat awkward book.
April 4, 2025
4.5*
Ο άνθρωπος είναι ποιητής. Τόσο υπέροχα γραμμένο, τόσο δυνατός λόγος, τόσ��ς εικόνες, τόσα ερωτήματα, τόσο βαθιά υπαρξιακό.
Λίγη ιστορία για το Χο τσι Μιν, ήθελα περισσότερο κ για αυτό χάνει το μισό αστέρι.
Ο Andras είναι εξαιρετικό δείγμα συγγραφέα της σύγχρονης λογοτεχνίας. Διαβάστε τον!!!!
"Και φυσικά, οι εργάτες, οι στερημενοι, οι ακτήμονες και οι λιμασμένοι συνέχιζαν να ξυλοκοπούνται κανονικά, πού και πού ο στρατός ή η αστυνομία αναλάμβανε να ξεκάνει μερικούς από δαύτους, ίσα ίσα για να θυμούνται και οι υπόλοιποι ότι το καθολικό εκλογικό δικαίωμα δεν εκτιμάται ποτέ περισσότερο από όσο μεταξύ λίγων και εκλεκτών. "
" Μοιραζόταν όντως την καθημερινότητά του και το κρεβάτι του; Παραχωρούσε όντως λίγη από αυτή την καρδιά, την ολότελα απορροφημένη από την πολιτική; Ένιωθε άραγε ότι η ζωή του ήταν συνυφασμένη με μια άλλη, και πως θα έμενε έτσι, έστω κι αν τις χώριζε ο χρόνος μέχρι το τέλος της δικής του; κουβαλούσε καμία φορά το βάρος ενός απόντος σώματος από το οποίο ανακουφιζοταν μόνο όταν το ξανά βλέπε; Πίστευε πως υπάρχει ένα βλέμμα όπως υπάρχει μια φωλιά, μια στρογγυλή ζεστασιά, μια σφιχτή αγκαλιά, τροχιές όπου προφυλάσσεται κανείς από έναν κόσμο ξέφρενο;"
Ο άνθρωπος είναι ποιητής. Τόσο υπέροχα γραμμένο, τόσο δυνατός λόγος, τόσ��ς εικόνες, τόσα ερωτήματα, τόσο βαθιά υπαρξιακό.
Λίγη ιστορία για το Χο τσι Μιν, ήθελα περισσότερο κ για αυτό χάνει το μισό αστέρι.
Ο Andras είναι εξαιρετικό δείγμα συγγραφέα της σύγχρονης λογοτεχνίας. Διαβάστε τον!!!!
"Και φυσικά, οι εργάτες, οι στερημενοι, οι ακτήμονες και οι λιμασμένοι συνέχιζαν να ξυλοκοπούνται κανονικά, πού και πού ο στρατός ή η αστυνομία αναλάμβανε να ξεκάνει μερικούς από δαύτους, ίσα ίσα για να θυμούνται και οι υπόλοιποι ότι το καθολικό εκλογικό δικαίωμα δεν εκτιμάται ποτέ περισσότερο από όσο μεταξύ λίγων και εκλεκτών. "
" Μοιραζόταν όντως την καθημερινότητά του και το κρεβάτι του; Παραχωρούσε όντως λίγη από αυτή την καρδιά, την ολότελα απορροφημένη από την πολιτική; Ένιωθε άραγε ότι η ζωή του ήταν συνυφασμένη με μια άλλη, και πως θα έμενε έτσι, έστω κι αν τις χώριζε ο χρόνος μέχρι το τέλος της δικής του; κουβαλούσε καμία φορά το βάρος ενός απόντος σώματος από το οποίο ανακουφιζοταν μόνο όταν το ξανά βλέπε; Πίστευε πως υπάρχει ένα βλέμμα όπως υπάρχει μια φωλιά, μια στρογγυλή ζεστασιά, μια σφιχτή αγκαλιά, τροχιές όπου προφυλάσσεται κανείς από έναν κόσμο ξέφρενο;"
January 6, 2026
Andras' novel traces in the footsteps of the young Nguyễn Ái Quốc scrappy formative years in early 20th c. Paris as he became embedded in the Communist movement (all while being spied on by the French government) before he grew into the towering radical figure known as Hồ Chí Minh. Andras projects this history onto the topography of Paris while also reflecting back on contemporary French politics — the gilets jaunes, the rise of Le Pen fascism.
Although conceptually this novel appealed to me, formally, something about it didn't click. The second person "you" of the narration — ostensibly a means of bringing the reader along on this walking tour of Paris — felt rather trite, as though Andras could not commit to his own narrative. Even so, this was an interesting and highly readable means of learning about this history through the geography of a city, which I can appreciate even more having recently returned from Paris.
Although conceptually this novel appealed to me, formally, something about it didn't click. The second person "you" of the narration — ostensibly a means of bringing the reader along on this walking tour of Paris — felt rather trite, as though Andras could not commit to his own narrative. Even so, this was an interesting and highly readable means of learning about this history through the geography of a city, which I can appreciate even more having recently returned from Paris.
December 1, 2025
maybe this is better in french... Andras narrates his journey retracing young Ho Chi Minh's years in paris in the 2nd person. honestly i thought he spent too much time talking about his own experience walking through paris today than on Ho Chi Minh. sometimes he was poetic but it usually felt unnecessary and unfocused to me. its rlly quite a short book but i ended up skipping ahead a few times bc i didnt want to hear more of Andras' random observations. also the 2nd person narrative was annoying (im pretending to be in the authors shoes who's pretending to be in Ho Chi Minh's shoes???). i feel like i didn't rlly learn much from this book. quite disappointed as i was looking forward to reading about Ho Chi Minh's time abroad after having finished The Green Lotus Bud this week.
1.5/5
1.5/5
October 24, 2024
Hay algo detrás de toda la prosa poética y la investigación flaneur por París que hace pensar que se ha desaprovechado un poco un material increíble. Está bien, pero no deja de dar la sensación de que en todo momento podría haber sido otra novela, un relato tal vez algo más extenso, un París más presente, las idas y venidas tan rápidas al presente en segunda persona (detalle que me gusta, pero que se agota en seguida) me sacan del hilo más que si la novela fuera un poco más larga (y le diese algo más de tiempo a explicarse y a viajar entre presente y pasado).
July 22, 2024
I wasn’t smart enough for this book
August 31, 2024
Lyrical and enchanting prose for an equally intriguing history.
September 18, 2024
4.5 rounding up
June 4, 2025
I can appreciate the author's ability to blend narrative and historical fact but I was really going into this book more looking for the history. a fine book but not what I was looking for.
February 1, 2026
An interesting attempt to write a story which blends facts and fiction, blurring the lines of reality.
Although interesting to read about Ho Chi Minh in this manner the writing at times was confusing and difficult to follow, leaving the reader with more questions than answers.
2.5/5
Although interesting to read about Ho Chi Minh in this manner the writing at times was confusing and difficult to follow, leaving the reader with more questions than answers.
2.5/5
February 19, 2026
this was just too confusing of a read 😭😭 we jump across these random sources for too much of the text
February 2, 2025
Last post on goodreads because I am not supporting Am*zon any longer. will be on storygraph instead! (ggraham0317)
January 27, 2026
A beautiful meditation on the never ending struggle of the have nots, ignored, despised, marginal peoples to have their needs and demands recognized by those who have it all. It is no surprise that Mr. Andras wrote about Ho Chi Minh's journey through the lower depths of Paris in the aftermath of the Gilets Jaunes protests. Mr. Andras uses the years that Nguyen Tat Thanh (the young man who would eventually become the icon Ho Chi Minh) spent in Paris to uncover the ghosts of the past still haunting France. France is no different to countries like the UK in the way it has chosen to forget its imperial past except to lash out at its residue by beating to death those like Malik Ossekine whose dark skin is an offense.
This is not a novel about Ho Chi Minh, it isn't even about Nguyen Tat Thanh or any of the other hundred odd names he used, it is an exploration of how change, monumental change, begins. It is fascinating to watch the French state monitor the young revolutionary by laboriously recording his places of residence, work, visits to libraries or to collect his dry cleaning. Different spies are sent in as double agents and in the end all they have are voluminous files, collected at considerable expense, that tells them everything and nothing. Andras can't resist contrasting how willingly we surrender via our social media, credit and bank cards and acceptance of universal street surveillance our entire lives up for scrutiny and dissection. At the end of all its efforts the French State couldn't prevent the future Ho Chi Minh from leaving France for Moscow.
The paladins of French officialdom could see that Nguyen Tat Thanh was a troublemaker but I doubt any one thought that thirty years after he departed for Moscow that beliefs like his would topple their empire in Indochina. In many ways it was fortunate that Nguyen began his revolution in France because in his homeland he was an 'indigene' covered not by the laws governing Frenchmen but by the 'Code de l'indienat' which allowed the colonial government to oppress, and kill, men like Nguen Tat Thanh without reference to inconvenient concepts such as liberte, fraternite and egalite which hampered their metropolitan colleagues.
The past does not explain the present but they are connected. You don't go off and take control over foreign lands and millions of people and use their resources and bodies for your own glory without consequences. In this beautiful narrative Mr. Andras walks through Paris and the fogs of 1919, the smoke of the Communards barricades in 1871 and 1968 and the tear gas of now and in the encotages to see Paris and France as a palimpsest of stories and meanings which have left traces that need to be read so we can understand ourselves.
While Mr. Andras paints a subtle picture of the young Nguyen Tat Thanh he has no time for the compromises and betrayals of Ho Chi Minh and he actively dislikes the icon in his mausoleum.
This is not a novel about Ho Chi Minh, it isn't even about Nguyen Tat Thanh or any of the other hundred odd names he used, it is an exploration of how change, monumental change, begins. It is fascinating to watch the French state monitor the young revolutionary by laboriously recording his places of residence, work, visits to libraries or to collect his dry cleaning. Different spies are sent in as double agents and in the end all they have are voluminous files, collected at considerable expense, that tells them everything and nothing. Andras can't resist contrasting how willingly we surrender via our social media, credit and bank cards and acceptance of universal street surveillance our entire lives up for scrutiny and dissection. At the end of all its efforts the French State couldn't prevent the future Ho Chi Minh from leaving France for Moscow.
The paladins of French officialdom could see that Nguyen Tat Thanh was a troublemaker but I doubt any one thought that thirty years after he departed for Moscow that beliefs like his would topple their empire in Indochina. In many ways it was fortunate that Nguyen began his revolution in France because in his homeland he was an 'indigene' covered not by the laws governing Frenchmen but by the 'Code de l'indienat' which allowed the colonial government to oppress, and kill, men like Nguen Tat Thanh without reference to inconvenient concepts such as liberte, fraternite and egalite which hampered their metropolitan colleagues.
The past does not explain the present but they are connected. You don't go off and take control over foreign lands and millions of people and use their resources and bodies for your own glory without consequences. In this beautiful narrative Mr. Andras walks through Paris and the fogs of 1919, the smoke of the Communards barricades in 1871 and 1968 and the tear gas of now and in the encotages to see Paris and France as a palimpsest of stories and meanings which have left traces that need to be read so we can understand ourselves.
While Mr. Andras paints a subtle picture of the young Nguyen Tat Thanh he has no time for the compromises and betrayals of Ho Chi Minh and he actively dislikes the icon in his mausoleum.
August 21, 2024
Not for me.
You know when you have seen someone move and have a conversation with another and walk away? That’s about as much as I know about Ho Chi Minh’s time in Paris. Maybe that’s as much as anyone really knows, as his aliases and subversion masked his private actions. No doubt his public actions were transformative.
Circuitous writing, not conveying much more than a whiff of environment of the transformational times.
There’s a lot of importance placed on the translation, for good reason. Conveying the essence of this writing would be hard.
You know when you have seen someone move and have a conversation with another and walk away? That’s about as much as I know about Ho Chi Minh’s time in Paris. Maybe that’s as much as anyone really knows, as his aliases and subversion masked his private actions. No doubt his public actions were transformative.
Circuitous writing, not conveying much more than a whiff of environment of the transformational times.
There’s a lot of importance placed on the translation, for good reason. Conveying the essence of this writing would be hard.
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