In 1936, Ngo Van was captured, imprisoned, and tortured in the dreaded Maison Centrale prison in Saigon for his part in the struggle to free Vietnam from French colonial rule. Five years later, Vietnamese independence was won, and Van found himself imprisoned and abused once more—this time by the Stalinist freedom fighter Ho Chi Minh. Five years after that, Van was in Paris, working with the surrealists.

In the Crossfire documents Ngo Van's incredible life in Vietnam during the two world wars, and his subsequent years spent in the midst of the Parisian intelligentsia. This is the first English translation!