SADEC, IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MARGUERITE DURAS
Sa Dec, the sleeping beauty, allowing herself to be bordered and caressed by the two branches of the Mekong, the Tien and Hau Rivers, seduces the traveller with her hint of Indochinese nostalgia. A small riverside town where a French novelist spent part of her childhood and adolescence, Sa dec is also a town full of charm where the deep culture of the Mekong Delta resonates.
Marguerite Duras and Sa dec
The French novelist spent part of her childhood and adolescence in Indochina and more particularly in Sa Dec. Her mother ran the girls' school there and Marguerite Duras used to come and spend her weekends with her mother and brother when she was a boarder at the Chasseloup-Laubat high school in Saigon. In her autobiographical novel "L'Amant", which won the Goncourt prize in 1984, Marguerite Duras tells us about her childhood and adolescence in the Mekong Delta and her first love with a rich young Chinese man from Cholon whom she met on a ferry crossing the river. For social convenience, the lover married a Chinese woman of his rank, and even her sister! He ended up with two wives... but the only true love of his life had been Marguerite, according to his last words. The novel was adapted for the cinema by Jean-Jacques Annaud.