IN THE FRONTISPIECE of my next novel, La Tombe de Thu Le, I have used a quote from the British writer and historian Ronald Fraser: “What actu­ally happened is less important than what is felt to have happened. Is that right?“

Set in Hanoi, the narrative journeys with a French woman tracing a 100­year family connection with Vietnam. Her great-grandfather was the supervising engineer on Hanoi’s French-built Doumer Bridge which is now called Long Bien. Like many French colonists, my fictional family stayed in Hanoi until 1954 and left during the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.