The Ugly American (1963)
The Ugly American is a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer upon which a 1963 movie starring Marlon Brando was based. The novel became a bestseller, was influential at the time, and is still in print. The book is a quasi-roman à clef; that is, it presents, in a fictionalized guise, the experience of Americans in Southeast Asia (Vietnam) and allegedly portrays several real people who are represented by pseudonyms.
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