Authorities withdraw best-seller on South Vietnam's unofficial First Lady

The translated book focusing on the life of Tran Le Xuan, popularly known as Madamme Nhu, South Vietnam's unofficial First Lady from 1955 to 1963, hit the shelves in February 2016 and immediately became a bestseller.

The reasons given by the department include that the edition was not carefully edited and therefore contained errors that were only detected after its publication.

According to the withdrawal request issued to district culture and information bureaus and book distributors, all circulation of the first edition must be stopped. The books will be returned to the Vietnamese Writers' Association Publishing House and Phuong Nam Book Company. Reports of the withdrawal must be submitted to the Department of Information and Communications by June 10.

Back on February 26, Vietnam's Publication Department officially instructed the Writers' Association Publishing House to suspend circulation of the original edition of Madame Nhu to "review the entire content and to edit certain details in the book and on its cover".

“Finding the Dragon Lady" was translated into Vietnamese by Mai Son under the name "Madam Nhu - Quyen luc ba Rong", and quickly became a best-seller in Vietnam after its publication in February this year. It was, however, found to contain many typing errors and inaccuracies, to which the translator admitted.

The corrected second edition was published in March by Phuong Nam with a record 20,000 copies.

Cover of the book "Madam Nhu - Quyen luc ba Rong", the Vietnamese translation of “Finding the Dragon Lady" by Monique Brinson Demery

Tran Le Xuan was the wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu, the brother and chief adviser of the then President Ngo Dinh Diem. She earned the nickname Dragon Lady for her ruthless character and for the immense political power she weilded in the south during the Vietnam War.