Michel L'Herpiniere is a teenager when he arrives in Indochina in the years before WWII. He falls in love with the country and the people, but gradually becomes aware that what is an idyll for the French is not seen the same way by the local population. This is a memoir of a young man growing up during the years of French rule in Vietnam.

Michel L'Herpiniere arrived in Hanoi as a teenager in the years before World War II. He fell in love with the country and the people, but gradually became aware that not all those around him felt the same way. Michel's story, brilliantly recreated by his stepdaughter Mandaley Perkins, is inevitably entwined with the history of Vietnam: the rise of the nationalist movement; the Japanese occupation; the revolution by the Vietminh and the United States' refusal to aid a 'colonial regime'; and the chaotic and tragic aftermath of World War II. In the heat and passion of the time, nothing and no-one can be read on the surface. Hanoi, Adieu is an intimate and compelling journey through the exotic and tumultuous final decades of French Indochina, as well as a moving story of love and loss. Shortlisted for the 2006 New South Wales Premier's Award for Non-fiction "an exquisitely beautiful and most beguiling story" Judges' comments