Đoàn Văn Toại (1945 in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

– November 2017 in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

) was a Vietnamese-born naturalized American activist and the author of ''

The Vietnamese Gulag ''The Vietnamese Gulag'' is the autobiography of the Vietnamese pro-democracy activist Doan Van Toai. The book focuses specifically on his arrest and imprisonment by the Communist Vietnamese government, events which precipitated a change in his ...

'' (

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

, 1986).

Biography

Doan became an antiwar activist, a supporter of the National Liberation Front and vice president of the Saigon Student Union in 1969 and 1970, and spent time in jails in

South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...

for antigovernment activities as a student leader. After the invasion of the

North Vietnamese Army The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN; vi, Quân đội nhân dân Việt Nam, QĐNDVN), also recognized as the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) or the Vietnamese Army (), is the military force of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the armed win ...

and the end of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

in 1975, he became a senior official of the Ministry of Finance under the Provisional Government. He soon disagreed on purely professional grounds with a superior official and was jailed for 28 months. He left Vietnam in May 1978 and went into exile in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. In 1989, he was shot and seriously wounded by two Asian males as he was walking in the area around his home in California. The shooting happened during a spate of attacks on foreign resident dissident Vietnamese and was widely believed to have been politically motivated. Doan's advocacy of the recognition of the government of Vietnam and proposal that the US government should establish diplomatic ties was not universally liked in the Vietnamese community and there was speculation that he was shot by anti-Communist protestors. Doan Van Toai was also the author of these books: *''Documents on prisons in Viet-Nam'' *''A

Vietcong , , war = the Vietnam War , image = FNL Flag.svg , caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. , active ...

Memoir (Mémoires d'un Vietcong'', w/ Nhu Tang Truong,

David Chanoff David Chanoff is a noted author of non-fiction work. His work has typically involved collaborations with the principal protagonist of the work concerned. His collaborators have included; Augustus A. White, Joycelyn Elders, Đoàn Văn Toại, Willia ...

) *''Vietnam: A Portrait of its People at War'' (w/ David Chanoff) *''Portrait of the Enemy: The Other Side of Vietnam, Told through Interviews with North Vietnamese, Former Vietcong and Southern Opposition Leaders'' (w/ David Chanoff).

References

External links

About the author

''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', July 13, 1986

Toai, Van. Doan Toai, Van. Doan Toai, Van. Doan Toai, Van. Doan Toai, Van. Doan Toai, Van. Doan Prisoners and detainees of Vietnam Toai, Van. Doan Writers of Vietnamese descent Toai, Van. Doan French male writers Naturalized citizens of the United States {{Vietnam-activist-stub American people of Vietnamese descent

Biography

See also

References

External links