By Carolyn Mattson, FOBPL Board

Sept. 27, 2023: To commemorate Veterans Day, Friends of the Bronxville Public Library (FOBPL) encourages book clubs to read Getting Out Of Saigon: How A 27-Year-Old Banker Saved 113 Vietnamese Civilians by Ralph White, in preparation for a special conversation with the author on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 in the Bronxville Public Library’s Yeager Room.  Bronxville resident Irena Choi Stern will moderate the evening.

In April 1975, the Chase Manhattan Bank’s senior management asked Ralph White, then 27, to relocate from its Bangkok branch to Saigon as enemy troops closed in on the city. The bank needed an American to helm Saigon’s branch in its final days, keeping it open as long as possible and rescuing its senior Vietnamese employees if closing became necessary.

Kirkus Reviews described the book as “a unique, gripping story from the Vietnam War....White's persona seems like something out of a Terry Southern or Ian Fleming novel—as does his writing. White tells his inspiring story with wit, panache, humility, and a captivating sense of time and place. A fantastic read." It is a remarkable account of one man’s quest to save innocent lives not because he was ordered, but because it was the right thing to do.

White subsequently worked in the International Strategic Planning Division of Chase and was a Vice President when he left. He then worked as a business development officer with three foreign banks and earned an MBA at Columbia University. In 2009, he founded the Columbia Fiction Foundry, a writing workshop for alumni of Columbia University. Having served as the organization’s president for its first decade, White now serves as its Chairman. He lives in New York City and Litchfield, CT.

To register for this author talk, please click here.

Please pick up your copy at your local bookstore.