Street Without Joy (book)

Street without Joy is a 1961 book about the First Indochina War (1946–1954); it was revised in 1964. The author Bernard B. Fall was a French-American professor and journalist. He had been on-site as a French soldier, and then as an American war correspondent. The book gives a first-hand look at the French engagement, with an insider understanding of Vietnamese events, and provided insights into guerrilla warfare. It drew wide interest among Americans in the mid-1960s, when their own country markedly increased its activity in the Vietnam War.

The title of the book was taken from the name given by French soldiers to a stretch of Route 1 which had been fortified by their enemies, the Viet Minh. It ran along the central coast of Vietnam from Huế north to Quảng Trị. In French it was called La Rue Sans Joie.