While this is a story of personal disillusionment and lost love, it’s also a powerful political statement, the lament of a former true believer in the communist ideals proclaimed by her country’s leaders. Hu-ong writes from bitter experience. During the Vietnam War, she was part of a theatrical Youth Brigade that entertained the troops on makeshift stages in the jungle and tunnels. It was such dangerous work that she was only one of three members of the 40-person group who survived. After victory in 1975, she became a screenwriter at the Fiction Film Studio in Hanoi but quickly ran into trouble with the censors. In 1987, during a brief period of liberalization, she published “Beyond Illusions”–now translated for the first time into English. But soon the government banned her writings, and she began publishing subsequent novels–like “Paradise of the Blind” and “Novel Without a Name” –abroad to growing critical acclaim. Her increasingly outspoken dissident views led to her expulsion from the Communist Party in 1990 and seven months’ imprisonment in 1991. Today, the divorced mother of two still lives in Hanoi.

It’s hard not to see Linh, the beautiful schoolteacher in “Beyond Illusions,” as an emotional twin of the author, even though their stories differ. Linh grows up fully believing the myths of the revolution, all the slogans about justice and equality. She falls in love with Nguyen, a literature professor who initially shares her idealism. But Nguyen turns to journalism as a way to provide a meager living for his wife and daughter, only to find himself quickly sinking into the morass of lies that constitute communist Vietnam. He ignores the evidence of starvation, corruption and abuse of power to put food on the table. Linh, who has maintained an astonishing naivete, never questions what he is doing–and then is stunned when confronted by the evidence that he has sold out by writing shameless propaganda. “I can’t love a man with no sense of honor,” she announces.

But how would we have survived if I had remained as pure as you wanted me to be? Nguyen thinks. He pleads with his wife to understand, trying to open her eyes to the compromises and deceit all around them. He tells her of unchecked power and greed, of party bosses who have devastated the lives of farmers by conducting harebrained experiments that are proclaimed agricultural triumphs. Linh remains unforgiving, and begins an affair with Tran Phuong, an acclaimed composer and painter who becomes her new idol. It’s immediately apparent to everyone but Linh that she’s fallen for a man who is far more compromised and cynical than her husband, setting herself up for more disillusionment.

Linh soon begins to learn what life is really like. Her building’s busybody reports her marital problems to the school where she teaches, and one of the most corrupt parents warns the principal: “We cannot have our children educated by such a shameless woman.” Although the principal knows Linh is an outstanding teacher, she buckles under the pressure, transferring her to a library job. Huong weaves in other characters who demonstrate the all-pervasive pettiness, scheming and hypocrisy of a system that claims to rule in the name of a higher morality. Linh’s new lover is exhibit A, denouncing its failings in private while meticulously orchestrating a campaign for a high party post that finally wakes her up to his duplicity.

Still anguished by the departure of his wife, Nguyen begins to reassess his life. When his editor asks him to cover up for a party official who is a serial rapist of young girls, he finally recovers his sense of decency and refuses to do so. He makes one more try for reconciliation with Linh, who is chastened but can’t bring herself to forgive. Pride, as much as what Nguyen calls her “fanatical” nature, doesn’t allow her to compromise. This once again is reminiscent of the author. In 1994, the Vietnamese government allowed Huong to visit Paris to pick up a prestigious French award for her writing, probably hoping that the gesture would persuade her to mute her fierce criticism. Instead, in interviews there she denounced the “rotten” party leadership and vowed not to be silenced. Anyone who had read this elegantly crafted first novel should have known not to expect anything less.