Le Ly Hayslip--just twelve years old when U.S. helicopters landed in her tiny village of Ky La--shows us the Vietnam War as she lived it. Initially pressed into service by the Vietcong, Le Ly was captured and imprisoned by government forces. She found sanctuary at last with an American contractor and ultimately fled to the United States. Almost twenty years after her escape, Le Ly found herself inexorably drawn back to the devastated country and loved ones she'd left behind, and returned to Vietnam in 1986. Scenes of this joyous reunion are interwoven with the brutal war years, creating a portrait of the nation, then and now--and of one courageous woman who held fast to her faith in humanity.

"With a new afterword"--Cover. "Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 1989, and in paperback by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., New York, in 1990"--Title page verso.