The American War, known as the Vietnam War in America, was a violent conflict lasting from 1955 until 1975. The conflict was primarily between two political factions within Vietnam. North Vietnam’s forces were made of two factions: the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), a conventional army, and the Việt Cộng (VC), an armed organization that engaged in guerilla warfare against South Vietnam’s military, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). The political conflicts between the north and south were rooted in the fraught geopolitical landscape following the Geneva Conference in 1954, which formally recognized Vietnam’s independence from France. North Vietnam remained communist with the Soviet Union and China as allies. South Vietnam, who received financial support, military weapons, equipment, and training from the United States government and their allies, established a democratic republic, and the conflict was soon viewed as a kind of proxy for the Cold War. Ultimately, North Vietnam’s forces invaded and defeated South Vietnam and reunited the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, formalizing their first constitution in 1980 and institutionalizing the Vietnamese Communist Party, which remains in power at the time of this printing.

In Banyan Moon, Minh recalls growing up in a rural part of the southern region of Vietnam during the war.