Kou Voravong
The political crisis caused by his assassination, barely two months after the Geneva Agreements which prepared to restore peace in Indochina, contributed to bring down the current neutralist government (pro-French) which was replaced by a progressive one (pro-American) in extremely tense atmosphere of the Cold War between Russia and the United States. From 1955 indeed, the political history of this small landlocked country fell trapped inexorably in the ideological confrontation between the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union, annihilating any hope of national unification.
The Changeling (Ōe novel)
In the novel, a filmmaker named Goro Hanawa commits suicide. Goro had appeared happy before his suicide. His best friend, a novelist named Kogito Choko, discovers the suicide via an audiotape recorded by Goro; he had sent forty tapes to Kogito. Chikashi Choko, Goro's sister and Kogito's wife, also learns that Goro died. To learn why Goro had killed himself, Kogito listens to the tapes. Scott Esposito of the "Los Angeles Times" said that "What he finds is a rambling series of discourses on everything from the friendship they've shared since they were teens in the 1950s to Goro's ideas about art and life, their shared admiration for Rimbaud and a few secrets from the past."Scott Esposito of the "Los Angeles Times" said that the book "offers evidence that the Japanese master has regained his footing." Christopher Tayler of "The Guardian" said that, because a Western reader may not have context that a Japanese reader would have, it would be more difficult for him or her to get fulfillment from the novel.