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Mai Khuyên

HÀ NỘI — Những Bóng Ma Trở Lại (The Returning Ghosts), a special detective novel by Danish journalist, diplomat and businessman Thomas Bo Pedersen, has been launched, revisiting the lingering and often brutal consequences of war long after the fighting has ended.

The thriller, originally published in English as The Hanoi Revenge, has been translated into Vietnamese and released by the Writers' Association Publishing House.

A book launch was held on Friday at the publishing house, offering readers an opportunity to meet and talk with the author and translator Hà Thủy Nguyên.

 

The event also featured photographs taken by the author during his 40 years in Việt Nam, capturing everyday, quiet moments that are sometimes beautiful and sometimes painful, forming a silent dialogue with the book itself.

With the participation of Mads Christoffersen of Mondogrande Publishing House, representatives of Project Renew, Chuck Searcy and Ngô Xuân Hiền, and violinist Trịnh Minh Hiển, the launch created a space where literature harmonised with war memories, efforts to heal the consequences of history and art as another way of reaching what is often difficult to express in words.

 

The author, who has been associated with Việt Nam for more than 40 years, witnessed fighting along the northern border. He interviewed the late Vietnamese Prime Minister Phạm Văn Đồng and the late Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyễn Cơ Thạch in 1984 and 1985.

In March 2023, he released the detective novel Hævnen Fra Hanoi in Danish, which was later translated into English as The Hanoi Revenge and has now been published in Vietnamese as Những Bóng Ma Trở Lại.

The work was published by Mondogrande in Denmark and was very well received by the Danish public thanks to its clear writing and engaging attractive telling.

Profits from the sale of the book by the author and the publisher will be donated to funds supporting mine clearance and victims of Agent Orange through the Project Renew.

 

Project Renew is a humanitarian mine action programme which is working in partnership with authority of the central province of Quảng Trị and international organisations to address the deadly legacy of unexploded ordnance left by post wars.

Memories and haunting images

Beneath the dust of history lie stories that appear to have fallen asleep but have not vanished. They are merely waiting for the moment to return in the form of memories, haunting images, unanswered questions and moral debts that humanity must confront.

Những Bóng Ma Trở Lại or The Hanoi Revenge is written from this very murky zone of history and humanity, according to The Book Hunter.

Speaking at the book launch on Friday about the difference in title of the book after being translated from English into Vietnamese, Thomas said it was an idea of the translater and the novel was actually a lot more about "ghosts" than "revenge".

"It is a better title," the author said adding that he agreed and was faithful to the translator's choice to change the title of the book.

The "ghost" in the novel is present in multiple layers of meanings: it is both a bloody past, a common memory, and a silent but persistent scar that continues to shape the present.

Meanwhile, Nguyên said: "Anyone who reads the English version of the book will see how much Thomas Bo Pedersen loves Việt Nam and admires the country's struggle in resistance wars. It is not just a diplomatic relationship but truly a beautiful friendship and sentiment."

"He felt sorrow for the fates of the people trampled by Western bombs and bullets; he empathised with the psychological struggles of the war-torn ghosts," Nguyên said. 

His novel places humanity in the grey area of constant and intense clashes between right and wrong, justice and injustice, the individual and the system.

It is not a novel written for entertainment. Instead, Thomas Bo Pedersen’s work opens up a world where war does not end when the guns fall silent, where diplomacy, journalism, power and violence intertwine in choices filled with pain. In this world, ghosts appear on multiple levels of meaning: a bloody past, collective memory, the lingering consequences of political decisions and the persistent question of individual responsibility in a world where blame always seems to belong to someone else. VNS