Single White Female in Hanoi

Single White Female in Hanoi

$29.95

ISBN: 978-0-9808462-2-5

Format: Trade Paperback

Rights: All rights: Transit Lounge

Release / Publication Date: 20110701

Categories:

Description

‘Beautifully written and very funny, the perfect combination of Hanoi, sexual taboo and gender politics.’ Emily Maguire (Bestselling Australian author)

‘Original and quirky, a warm-hearted and very funny tale of noodles, sexual longing and cultural misunderstanding in the new Vietnam’ Mark Dapin (Journalist, columnist and author)

Sydney-based musician Carolyn Shine moves to Hanoi virtually on a whim, expecting to find romance and available culture. She’s in for some big surprises. Funny, warm and engaging, her travel memoir introduces us to a cast of memorable Vietnamese characters as well as her fellow foreigners searching for love and adventure. From teaching English, sub-editing a propaganda news sheet, to forming a blues band, against the backdrop of a world seemingly alive with the promise of romance, this is a beguiling evocation of Hanoi and its people: pungent, earthy and sensual.

Carolyn Shine

Carolyn Shine

Carolyn Shine studied Fine Arts and Linguistics at the University of New South Wales and went on to become a musician, songwriter and music educator. As a freelance writer she has been published in various publications, including the Sydney Morning Herald. She moved to Hanoi on a whim in 2002, expecting available culture and romance. Her disappointment propelled her to seek satisfying answers to questions on culture that until then she’d never dared ask. Tragically Carolyn Shine lost her battle with ovarian cancer on March 10, 2012. She had just celebrated her 47th birthday.

This is a thoughtful and intelligent book.

Bruce Elder The Saturday Age and Sydney Morning Herald, 1 October 2011. 

Carolyn spent a year teaching English whilst living in Hanoi. With an ear for language that only a musician can have she struggles with communication and gender politics in a culture very different from her own. Exceptionally fine writing and a wry self-awareness makes this travel memoir unforgettable.

The Independent Bookseller’s Spring Reading Guide