Lady of the Realm
One day there will be peace in Vietnam. But not before more war.
Touched by the Lady of the Realm, Liên dreams of bones and bodies under the sea. The prescient warnings from the Lady weigh heavily on Liên, who is burdened by her inability to save everyone. But she knows that the Lady speaks most to those who listen.
Set against the background of the Vietnam/American war we follow Liên’s path across five decades that are punctuated by endless war and suffering.
Yet even in the most desperate of times, Liên refuses to be ruled by fear and anger and persists in her hope for a peaceful future.
But will hope be enough?
2017 | ISBN 9781925581133 | Paperback | 98 pp
Table of Contents
Prologue
Hiếu, Love of Family, South Vietnam, 1962
Upeksha, Love that Goes Beyond all Boundaries, Saigon, 1964
Nghỉa, Love of Country , South Vietnam 1980
Metta, Loving Kindness, South Vietnam, 1991
Maitreya, True Love, South Vietnam, 2007
Karuna, Compassion, Prajna Monastery, South Vietnam 2009
Reviews
Whilst many themes, historic, social, and existential are explored in Lady of the Realm, I found its strongest messages to be the gifts of compassion and forgiveness, and the gift of peace, and how easy it is to take that peace for granted. And indeed, one of my favourite passages of the book is “Our teacher Thầy says, though we have suffered at the hands of the foreigners, they were once children too and we can feel compassion for the suffering children the invaders once were.”
Read the full review here.—Angela Wauchop, Backstory Journal
...Pham has contrived to tell a personal, human story through her character Liên, while also conveying a philosophical attitude to life based on endurance, compassion and most of all hope. A moving, inspiring read.
—Sue Terry, Whispering Gums
Although it’s set in Vietnam, tracing many decades of that country’s tragic history, it’s a calm, meditative book which asserts that peace is possible. I liked it very much.
—Lisa Hill, ANZLITLOVERS.COM
Lady of the Realm can be read on a number of levels. It begins as a rite of passage story with Liên attempting to come to terms with the foresight the Lady has given her and reconcile her feelings about what has happened to her village with Buddhist teachings about compassion. On a broader level, it is an exploration of the choices survivors make in the midst of war and during the upheavals that follow it. There are few villains here—especially not the people smuggler and black marketeer who risks her life to help people who have given up hope to escape by sea to Malaysia.
—Lynn Smailes, PEN Melbourne
The perspective is female and Buddhist, and all that Liên desires is lasting peace, which she seems doomed never to experience. The story of the 2009 destruction of the Prajna Monastery is particularly surprising and saddening.
—Kerryn Goldsworthy, Sydney Morning Herald
Compassion is quiet, still and deep as a well rippling inwards after we put down this book. We are returned to our shared humanity, that muscle holding tenderly the bone.
—Merlinda Bobis
In tender, lucid prose Hoa Pham distils painful decades of Vietnam’s past into a beautiful Buddhist story of hope, survival and the possibility of transformation for everyone.
—Nicholas Jose