A Wavering Grace: a Vietnamese Family in War and Peace.

1997. Viking. 1997. 8vo., original cloth with dust wrapper. A fine copy. First edition. "Gavin Young first visited Vietnam in 1965 at the time of the American invasion. He was to spend most of the next ten years there as a reporter for the Observer, but also as a kind of honorary citizen and adopted son, forming unusually close ties with the 'delightful, infinitely patient Vietnamese people' and with one family in particular...In a Wavering Grace one of our most distinguished travel writers offers us an unusual and affecting memoir, a unique view of a tragic land. It is the tale of one man's relationship with a people and a place, but even more it is the tale of one indomitable family, whose own lives read like a chronicle of twentieth century Vietnamese history." With a quantity of related material including three typed drafts of the work, dated May to July 1996 with manuscript corrections and amendments by Gavin Young, Peter Carson and Gritta Weil (some on post-its). Each draft is c. 200pp. typed on the rectos only. Also with various typed drafts of chapters from the book, annotated in manuscript by Young and Weil (c. 600pp). With a folder containing an annotated set of page proofs of the early chapters, with editorial notes and correspondence between the author, Gritta Weil, and the publisher discussing corrections, rights payments, advance puffs etc. Some of the correspondence is faxed and therefore fading. Provenance: From the estate of Gritta Weil (1924-2009), a refugee from Germany, who worked for The Observer from 1945 to 1984, and was a close friend of the travel writer and journalist for the same paper, Gavin Young (1928-2001), who is most remembered for his 1977 book Return to the Marshes, based on his life with the Marsh Arabs of Iraq. This was followed by an account of his travels in Mesopotamia in 1980.