Hailed on first publication and continuously reprinted in Spain, "The Yellow Rain "is a haunting ode to the power of memory, an elegy for a landscape and a way of life.

A reinvestigation of chemical biological weapons dropped on the Hmong people in the fallout of the Vietnam War In this staggering work of documentary, poetry, and collage, Mai Der Vang reopens a wrongdoing that deserves a new reckoning. As the United States abandoned them at the end of the Vietnam War, many Hmong refugees recounted stories of a mysterious substance that fell from planes during their escape from Laos starting in the mid-1970s. This substance, known as “yellow rain,” caused severe illnesses and thousands of deaths. These reports prompted an investigation into allegations that a chemical biological weapon had been used against the Hmong in breach of international treaties. A Cold War scandal erupted, wrapped in partisan debate around chemical arms development versus control. And then, to the world’s astonishment, American scientists argued that yellow rain was the feces of honeybees defecating en masse—still held as the widely accepted explanation. The truth of what happened to the Hmong, to those who experienced and suffered yellow rain, has been ignored and discredited. Integrating archival research and declassified documents, Yellow Rain calls out the erasure of a history, the silencing of a people who at the time lacked the capacity and resources to defend and represent themselves. In poems that sing and lament, that contend and question, Vang restores a vital narrative in danger of being lost, and brilliantly explores what it means to have access to the truth and how marginalized groups are often forbidden that access.

A mysterious—and lethal—chemical weapon goes missing in this Cold War thriller of nonstop intrigue and suspense. When an Afghan village becomes paralyzed by the Soviets’ new warfare, and a thick nerve gas suffocates innocent people, rumors of a deadly weapon find their way to the Pentagon—and into the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Mark Schad. Along with his three-man team, Lieutenant Colonel Schad will lead one of the riskiest covert operations known to the US Department of Defense in order to find one unexploded cylinder of Yellow Rain. But are these men up against something much greater than American intelligence is prepared to face?