[Covenantor]

Story of Q - I like this. Truyện Kiều- the story of Kiều - is the classic work of Vietnamese literature. It is an allegorical tale of corruption and bad faith among the rulers of long ago China.

Interesting that mention of Truyện Kiều of which few westerners are aware, yet it figures, in books by two authors who have very, very interesting bios and books alluding to Deep State.

Charles McCarry and Robert K. Tannenbaum.

"Shelly's Heart", "The Tears of Autumn" by McCarry.

"Corruption of Blood" by Tannenbaum (Truyện Kiều mention occurs in another of his novels, but this one concerns Deep State.)

[mairdie]

I never cease to be amazed at the depth of research of some posters. It never occurred to me to do that sort of search, and I’m sure I would never have been so good at it. Please know that such work is appreciated.

[ThanhPhero]

I have read Truyện Kiều in translation (two of themĐ and then gone back to read it in tiếng Việt. It is hard. It seems to be written in a very abbreviated style and I was frustrated until I remembered that it was originally written in Chinese (Nom-Việt version) which reads like that with much of the meaning implied and actually supplied by the reader. At any rate the English translations get the tone and general narrative right but interpolate a lot of missing details to complete the narrative for English readers, many of which do not seem to be supported by the original at all.

[ThanhPhero]

I am curious now and will check out those two authors.