A story from Connla

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'The Lake of Hoan Kiem' - a hundred-year-old Hanoi ballad
Who was the first Irishman to visit Hanoi? We'll never know for sure but the following tale does at least tell us he might have a) arrived with no money…
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Connla Stokes
Our magical, humdrum Hanoi lives
Old pals have likely read this one but for new-er subscribers, here's a paean to me and my buddies' Salad Days, when we didn't need speedometers, and…
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Connla Stokes
3
‘The Viet Celts are coming!’
A half-remembered tale about a ragtag bunch of men in Hanoi forming the Viet Celts Gaelic Football Club in 2007. This story first appeared in…
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Connla Stokes
2
Into the hereafter
A piece of satirical fiction about the online reaction to a man's disappearance in Vietnam.
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Connla Stokes
In the studio of lost youth – a (very minor) San Franciscan mystery for the ages
A short piece of non-fiction, which is based on a fake memory that everyone else forgot to make up.
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Connla Stokes
4
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Falling for Old Saigon in Ho Chi Minh City
 • Connla Stokes
11
The ballad of Apo, B. and Clair de Lune
 • Connla Stokes
How **not** to travel through Laos on a motorbike — a cautionary tale told many years too late
 • Connla Stokes
"It's nhậu or never, come eat and drink with me..."
 • Connla Stokes
2
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The story of Salt & Pepper (and Wallace Terry)
The black American journalist Wallace Terry passed away 20 years ago this week, so I'm posting this in his honour. Maybe some day someone will make a…
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Connla Stokes
2
'Is this the real life, or is this just fantasy?'
First published in 2014, this short fictional piece is an 'anti-paean' to a certain time and place and the foolish behaviours of some. Only the likes of…
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Connla Stokes
4
The ballad of Apo, B. and Clair de Lune
A tale I have told in person more than once over the years. Now committed to digital ink for the first time. A text premiere, no less.
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Connla Stokes
No Hanoi summer lasts forever
It's been brutally hot and, at times, fairly airless in Saigon this week, which reminds me of this old piece of fiction set in Hanoi when 'we' had no…
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Connla Stokes
2
Phường 19 (Binh Thanh Edition)
In 2019, I wrote this paean to my local neighbourhood in Saigon. Although I worry one small part of it is becoming too much of a 'Pub Street', it's…
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Connla Stokes
The Year of Living Haruki-Murakamily
First published by Eksentrika (2022), this satirical story, written in peak pandemic times, began as a spoof of Mr. Murakami's oeuvre but unfurled into…
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Connla Stokes
7
Tet in Saigon is oh so quiet
I first wrote this in 2017 and even though downtown HCMC has got much busier at Tet in recent years, it mostly holds up (I have updated it a smidge…
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Connla Stokes
A story from Connla
Stories by Connla Stokes, mostly set in Vietnam

A story from Connla

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