**"Joseph Andras writes with the swiftness of lightning."–Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The SympathizerA biographical historical fiction retelling of Ho Chi Minh's immigration and radical life in underground Paris in the 1920s**Fleeing persecution in Indochina, the young Ho Chi Minh arrived in Paris as World War I was sputtering to a close. A painfully shy twentysomething who stammered when he spoke in public, he joined the shadowy figures of the demimonde, t...

Fleeing persecution in Indochina, the young Ho Chi Minh arrived in Paris as World War I was sputtering to a close. A painfully shy twentysomething, he joined the shadowy figures of the demimonde, the radicals, poor artists, prostitutes, the luckless, and rebellious.Six years later, he boarded a train bound for the young Soviet Union as the fiery, passionate leader of the Vietnamese independence movement and a founder of the French Communist Party. He had lived under various pseudon...