The novel's narrator is a neighbor of Kien, who has taken on the task of putting Kien's writings some type of narrative order. At the end of the book, he reveals that he is a fellow soldier, and that he and Kien had a lot in common. In his work, he felt making sense of Kien's life served as an attempt to make sense of his own life as well.
The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam