By Arthita Banerjee
When my Welsh friend who spent years teaching high school in Vietnam, suggested I Dreamed of Peace, I didn’t hesitate to pick it up. He spoke of it not just as a book but as an experience—a way to truly understand the Vietnam War from the inside out, through the eyes of someone who lived it every day. That someone was Đặng Thùy Trâm, a young North Vietnamese doctor whose diary survived long after she didn’t.
Reading Thùy Trâm’s diary is like opening a time capsule to a world that is at once far away and disarmingly close. The way she writes feels so immediate, so raw, that it’s easy to forget you’re reading about events that happened decades ago. Her entries aren’t just about the war; they’re about life, love, and the unyielding hope for peace—written with the kind of honesty that cuts right through the noise.
What struck me most is how her words echoed in the quiet spaces of my mind and lingered long after the page is turned. There’s this deep sense of place in her writings— she looks at the experience from an almost clinical lens with the jungles and battlefields of Vietnam. It’s all there: the smells, the sounds, the suffocating heat, the constant threat of danger.
But Thùy Trâm’s diary also offers something more intimate—a look into the soul of a woman who, despite the horrors surrounding her, clings fiercely to her humanity. She writes about her comrades, her patients, and the relentless struggle of keeping her own fear in check. There’s a resilience in her words. It’s one thing to learn about history in a classroom; it’s another to feel it through the words of someone who lived it.
Thùy Trâm’s diary is more than a historical document; it’s a profound personal story that speaks to the endurance of the human spirit, especially in a world that seems perpetually on the brink of repeating past mistakes.
I Dreamed of Peace isn’t just a record of a war—it’s a voice reaching across time, pulling you into the heart of a conflict that shaped a generation. There’s an intimacy in her writing that feels almost like having a late-night conversation with a friend, the kind where you dive into life’s toughest questions and come away changed. Reading I Dreamed of Peace reminded me of why stories matter—how they connect us across cultures, across time.
