Escape from Communist Heaven

Escape from Communist Heaven PDF Author: Dennis W. Dunivan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781591812296
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
For Viet Nguyen, the only thing worse than rules are the people who enforce them. This may not be the best attitude to have in a society that punishes dissent with death. A rebellious teenager is often the main character of young adult fiction, but what makes Viet particularly interesting is that he challenges a system that borders on genocide. Communist tanks advance through Viet s Saigon neighborhood when he is fourteen years old, and overtake the Presidential Palace as American helicopters retreat over the South China Sea. During the frantic evacuation, the American Embassy isn t able to destroy secret files containing the names of South Vietnamese intelligence officers. Viet s father is one of these officers. Within days, the city is infiltrated by communist soldiers who take over public buildings and spies who move into local neighborhoods. To survive, his family must keep a low profile. Viet s life was better during the war. With the Americans gone, he has little hope for freedom and must watch his every step. But his rebellious spirit gets the upper hand and he is arrested in the black market, becoming one of more than a million people in labor camps spread across the jungles of Vietnam. Viet s captors have a dream. When everyone on earth is under their control, they believe, we will have reached Communist Heaven. Many of the prisoners are ex-soldiers. Others are religious leaders, academics and anyone who might provide leadership against the new regime. Tens of thousands of these prisoners die of starvation, malaria and physical beatings. Viet is determined not to be one of them. He uses the same daring that led to his arrest to create a chance to break free. Based on the true story of Viet Nguyen, this novel is about a teenager who makes some mistakes and faces the consequences. To know freedom, he must not only escape from prison, but also from his country."

Escape from Communist Heaven

Escape from Communist Heaven PDF Author: Dennis W. Dunivan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781591812296
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
For Viet Nguyen, the only thing worse than rules are the people who enforce them. This may not be the best attitude to have in a society that punishes dissent with death. A rebellious teenager is often the main character of young adult fiction, but what makes Viet particularly interesting is that he challenges a system that borders on genocide. Communist tanks advance through Viet s Saigon neighborhood when he is fourteen years old, and overtake the Presidential Palace as American helicopters retreat over the South China Sea. During the frantic evacuation, the American Embassy isn t able to destroy secret files containing the names of South Vietnamese intelligence officers. Viet s father is one of these officers. Within days, the city is infiltrated by communist soldiers who take over public buildings and spies who move into local neighborhoods. To survive, his family must keep a low profile. Viet s life was better during the war. With the Americans gone, he has little hope for freedom and must watch his every step. But his rebellious spirit gets the upper hand and he is arrested in the black market, becoming one of more than a million people in labor camps spread across the jungles of Vietnam. Viet s captors have a dream. When everyone on earth is under their control, they believe, we will have reached Communist Heaven. Many of the prisoners are ex-soldiers. Others are religious leaders, academics and anyone who might provide leadership against the new regime. Tens of thousands of these prisoners die of starvation, malaria and physical beatings. Viet is determined not to be one of them. He uses the same daring that led to his arrest to create a chance to break free. Based on the true story of Viet Nguyen, this novel is about a teenager who makes some mistakes and faces the consequences. To know freedom, he must not only escape from prison, but also from his country."

Escape from Communism

Escape from Communism PDF Author: Dumitru Sandru
Publisher: Chivileri Publishing
ISBN: 0983669562
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 119

Get Book Here

Book Description
Life under communism is cruel and inhumane. Commit the smallest political infraction, and the secret police will arrest you. The only ray of hope is the West, but getting out from communism is difficult. Communist countries have a “Berlin Wall” around them. It is a crime to escape by crossing the border illegally, and anyone caught is beaten and imprisoned, sometimes even shot. I was eighteen, and I was living in hell. However, I would rather have died than keep living as a communist slave. This is my story of what happened and how I reached freedom.

The Escapes and My Journey to Freedom

The Escapes and My Journey to Freedom PDF Author: Du Hua
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1477210636
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Get Book Here

Book Description
He was born in the warzone. The invasions of the North Vietnamese Communists had caused total destruction throughout the entirety of his parents village when he was just four years of age. He had witnessed the killings and the brutality of the evil Communists throughout his childhood. After the Fall of Saigon, his family had suffered great hardship from the Vietcong. It was clear that there was no future for the young generation; his family had determined to find ways for their son to escape the Communist regime. He had tried numerous times to escape with no success; nevertheless, God had protected him and he did not get killed or caught by the Vietcong. He finally escaped successfully on his eleventh attempt and his boat was so lucky to get rescued by a German ship in the unforgiving ocean. He settled in the United States of America after years of long waiting in the refugee camp. He has found the life of freedom and dignity in America from the hell of the evil Communists. He has appreciated so much about his new country harboring him and he was determined to serve and help protect the freedom and democracy for his new motherland. He joined the United States Navy and became a sailor, serving multiple deployments. He was very happy and dreamed to become a Navy jet fighter pilot someday. Unfortunately, he got injured while performing his duty. His medical separation from the US Navy saddened his heart and soul. Now he, as a disable veteran, had to fight for survival for himself and his family with two small daughters. He had to return to college and further his education. He overcame all major obstacles and impediments mentally and physically; he graduated from a Doctor of Pharmacy program from Nova Southeastern University. Since then, he has been working as a pharmacist to support his family. He was extremely happy to have another opportunity to serve his patients, his community. However, his old injury continues to aggravate him over the years; nonetheless, he continues to fight to support his family and serve the people he loves.

The Eaves of Heaven

The Eaves of Heaven PDF Author: Andrew X. Pham
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307381218
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
One of the Ten Best Books of the Year, Washington Post Book World One of the Los Angeles Times’ Favorite Books of the Year One of the Top Ten National Books of 2008, Portland Oregonian A 2009 Honor Book of the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association “Few books have combined the historical scope and the literary skill to give the ­foreign reader a sense of events from a Vietnamese perspective. . . . Now we can add Andrew Pham’s Eaves of Heaven to this list of indispensable books.” —New York Times Book Review “Searing . . . vivid–and harrowing . . . Here is war and life through the eyes of a Vietnamese everyman.” —Seattle Times Once wealthy landowners, Thong Van Pham’s family was shattered by the tumultuous events of the twentieth century: the French occupation of Indochina, the Japanese invasion during World War II, and the Vietnam War. Told in dazzling chapters that alternate between events in the past and those closer to the present, The Eaves of Heaven brilliantly re-creates the trials of everyday life in Vietnam as endured by one man, from the fall of Hanoi and the collapse of French colonialism to the frenzied evacuation of Saigon. Pham offers a rare portal into a lost world as he chronicles Thong Van Pham’s heartbreaks, triumphs, and bizarre reversals of fortune, whether as a South Vietnamese soldier pinned down by enemy fire, a prisoner of the North Vietnamese under brutal interrogation, or a refugee desperately trying to escape Vietnam after the last American helicopter has abandoned Saigon. This is the story of a man caught in the maelstrom of twentieth-century politics, a gripping memoir told with the urgency of a wartime dispatch by a writer of surpassing talent.

The Will of Heaven

The Will of Heaven PDF Author: Ngọc Ngạn Nguyễn
Publisher: New York : Dutton
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 358

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears PDF Author: Dinaw Mengestu
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101217561
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book Here

Book Description
Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution for a new start in the United States. Now he finds himself running a failing grocery store in a poor African-American section of Washington, D.C., his only companions two fellow African immigrants who share his bitter nostalgia and longing for his home continent. Years ago and worlds away Sepha could never have imagined a life of such isolation. As his environment begins to change, hope comes in the form of a friendship with new neighbors Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter. But when a series of racial incidents disturbs the community, Sepha may lose everything all over again. Watch a QuickTime interview with Dinaw Mengestu about this book.

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven PDF Author: Susan Jane Gilman
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 044654468X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book Here

Book Description
They were young, brilliant, and bold. They set out to conquer the world. But the world had other plans for them. Bestselling author Susan Jane Gilman's new memoir is a hilarious and harrowing journey, a modern heart of darkness filled with Communist operatives, backpackers, and pancakes. In 1986, fresh out of college, Gilman and her friend Claire yearned to do something daring and original that did not involve getting a job. Inspired by a place mat at the International House of Pancakes, they decided to embark on an ambitious trip around the globe, starting in the People's Republic of China. At that point, China had been open to independent travelers for roughly ten minutes. Armed only with the collected works of Nietzsche, an astrological love guide, and an arsenal of bravado, the two friends plunged into the dusty streets of Shanghai. Unsurprisingly, they quickly found themselves in over their heads. As they ventured off the map deep into Chinese territory, they were stripped of everything familiar and forced to confront their limitations amid culture shock and government surveillance. What began as a journey full of humor, eroticism, and enlightenment grew increasingly sinister-becoming a real-life international thriller that transformed them forever. Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven is a flat-out page-turner, an astonishing true story of hubris and redemption told with Gilman's trademark compassion, lyricism, and wit.

Adam and Evelyn

Adam and Evelyn PDF Author: Ingo Schulze
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307701441
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
From one of Germany’s finest writers comes a wonderfully light and humorous novel set during the tumultuous events of 1989. A wobbling Hungary has just opened its borders to Austria enabling a flood of refugees to escape, the Berlin Wall is on the cusp of falling, and, yet, seemingly sheltered from this onrushing new world in their idyllic East German home are Adam, a tailor and dressmaker who enjoys a life of dressing (and undressing) his appreciative clientele, and Evelyn, Adam’s restless girlfriend. Having just unexpectedly quit her job as a waitress, Evelyn returns home one day to find Adam sleeping with one of his customers. Calmly, but quickly, Evelyn packs her belongings and runs off to Hungary on a vacation she had originally planned to take with Adam. Accompanying Evelyn on her journey is her friend Simone and Michael, Simone’s West German cousin. In hot pursuit, however, to everyone’s surprise or dismay, is Adam. Following the group in his family’s rickety 1961 Communist-made automobile, Adam chases after Evelyn, banishing himself from his Garden of Eden as she pursues her very own idea of heaven. As Adam and Evelyn are swept out on a Western tide of new freedoms—helping refugees and helping themselves to impetuous trysts with others along the way—they find themselves forced to adjust to life in a world forever changed. Paradise regained? Perhaps not. Upending our expectations from the start, Adam and Evelyn is a deceptively simple love story that will enthrall longtime readers and those new to the delights of Ingo Schulze’s stories alike.

Blue Heaven’s Tent

Blue Heaven’s Tent PDF Author: Markie Doczi
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666769142
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 166

Get Book Here

Book Description
Set in Berlin, Germany, in 1961, Blue Heaven's Tent tells the story of Klaus Franke, whose life is changed forever when he wakes one morning to find himself separated from his family by barbed wire. Now trapped in Communist East Germany, Klaus grows increasingly desperate to escape as the barbed wire develops into the infamous Berlin Wall. Meanwhile, his wife, Gerda, is stuck in West Berlin raising their two children as a single parent. When Klaus is thrown into political prison, Gerda waits to hear-but fears to learn-of her husband's fate.

Storming the Heavens

Storming the Heavens PDF Author: Daniel Peris
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801434853
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book Here

Book Description
A member of the first generation of scholars allowed access to formerly closed Soviet archives, Daniel Peris offers a new perspective on the Bolshevik regime's antireligious policy from 1917 until 1941. He focuses on the activities of the League of the Militant Godless, the organization founded by the regime in 1925 to spearhead its efforts to promote atheism and he presents the League's propaganda, activities, and personnel at both the central and the provincial levels. On the basis of his research in archives in rural Pskov and industrial Iaroslavl', as well as in the central party and state archives in Moscow, Peris emphasizes the transformation of the ideological agenda formulated in Moscow as it moved to its intended audience. Storming the Heavens places the League within the broader context of a Bolshevik political culture that often acted at cross purposes to undermine the regime's stated goals. The League's lack of success, argues Peris, reflects the bureaucratic orientation of Bolshevik political culture, particularly in how it pursued the radical social vision of 1917. His book provides a framework for undertanding secularization in revolutionary contexts as well as contributing to the on-going reassessments of the Bolshevik era.