GROWING UP IN VIETNAM

Having just read Le Ly Haslip’s book “When Heaven and Earth Changed Places,” I find Lynne Bundesen’s review criminally misleading (Book Review, June 25). Did we read the same book? Haslip’s account of growing up in Vietnam is the first time the Vietnamese point of view has been written in English. It is eloquent and moving.

Bundesen complains that it is not the book she wanted to read: “The book lacks specificity. . . .” How much more specific can one be in retelling one’s life story? Haslip, without flinching, writes of every rape, torture, beating, betrayal that she endured. Bundesen--a feminist, no doubt--cannot understand why the author remains a “romantic” and can still have hope. A reviewer so self-involved is not fit to review a ground-breaking book such as this.

T. T. NHU

SAN JOSE