Apocalypse Hotel

Three violent deaths occur within days among a group of young nouveaux riches of Hanoi—but neither the victims nor the circumstances are as they seem. Is fate responsible? Or a woman of extreme beauty and mystery? When Danang Publishing House risked bringing out Ho Anh Thai's controversial novel Cõi người rung chuông tận thế (The Apocalypse Bell Tolls in the Human World) in 2002 after numerous others had refused it, Vietnam was a nation still struggling to find its identity decades after being torn apart by war. Ho Anh Thai's previous stories and novels had already seized the imagination of a young postwar generation. He had become a literary sensation even as a teenager, his fresh, fluid, luminous style capturing the essence of their modern Vietnam. The book was a sensation in its author's home country: to date it has sold more than 50,000 copies in ten printings and has been received enthusiastically by both public and critics as a work of creativity and disturbing truth. Now, as