Vietnamese literature:

Spring Essence: The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong

"For her erotic attitudes, Hồ Xuân Hương turned to the common wisdom alive in peasant folk poetry and proverbs" - John Balaban

"Balaban, the first to translate Ho Xuan Huong's poetry into English, also helped reclaim the all but lost calligraphic system she utilized, called Nom , displaying Nom texts alongside English and modern Vietnamese versions of each poem. But all such historic concerns pale in the presence of Ho Xuan Huong's saucy voice, vital imagery, and nimble, teasing, sexy, and wise protestations and philosophical observations manifest in poems that transcend time, geography, and culture with startling directness, relevance, and verve. " - Booklist

The Tale of Kieu

"Since its publication in the early nineteenth century, this long narrative poem has stood unchallenged as the supreme masterpiece of Vietnamese literature. Thông’s new and absorbingly readable translation (on pages facing the Vietnamese text) is illuminated by notes that give comparative passages from the Chinese novel on which the poem was based, details on Chinese allusions, and literal translations with background information explaining Vietnamese proverbs and folk sayings." - Amazon book introduction

Lament of the Soldier's Wife

"...Dang Tran Con, in his eighteenth-century Chinh Phu Ngam [Lament of a Soldier's Wife], criticized the endless warfare of the period, yet also idealized the women who stayed home faithfully to pine for their husbands..." - David G. Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial

The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam

"Kien, the protagonist of this rambling and sometimes nearly incoherent but emotionally gripping account of the Vietnam war, is a 10-year veteran whose experiences bear a striking similarity to those of the author, a Hanoi writer who fought with the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade." Publishers Weekly

"Once again the reader learns that war is hell -- even when your side is supposedly the winner." - The New York Times

"These two novelists, both of whom fought for North Vietnam, offer American readers a startlingly different perspective on the war." - Library Journal

The Stars, the Earth, the River

"The author is revealed as a fine, spare stylist with a flaire for satire." -- New York Times Book Review

Behind the Red Mist

"...[An] elegantly construction collection by one of Vietnam's most prominent contemporary writers....handsomely translated by a team of American and Vietnamese writers and scholars." -- The New York Times Book Review

Against the Flood

"...a vivid and compelling portrait of life in Vietnam today." -- Los Angeles Times

"Themes of integrity, idealism, love, friendship, art, opportunity, corruption, and betrayal run throughout this probing vision..." -- Publishers Weekly

Past Continuous

"This "documentary novel," originally published in the early 1980s and inspired by real people and real events, provides a different angle on the Vietnam War via the story of three friends: Ba Hue, a female commander of the Viet Cong; Quan, a North Vietnamese secret agent; and Vinh, a Catholic priest. Intense and highly political, the novel uses an unnamed narrator, an acquaintance of all three characters, as a medium to piece together their interspersed stories." - Publishers Weekly

"If you question what we are fighting for and who the real enemies were...this book is well worth reading." -- Texas Observor

The Cemetery of Chua Village

"...Doan Le's gorgeous stories, socially astute and suffused with a warm humanity, are great news from Vietnam." -- St. Petersburg Times

"A wide range of human emotion--anger, jealousy, delusion, resentment--is depicted in these simple tales." -- MuliCultural Review

"Vietnamese short stories with a fantastical edge and some starling twists and turns." -- Seattle Post

An Insignificant Family

"Beginning in Vietnam shortly after the end of the American war and ending sometime in the 21st century, this 8th volume of Curbstone's Voices from Vietnam Series follows the life of Nguyen Thi My Tiep, a woman writer and a revolutionary, whose girlhood is spent as a guerrilla fighter, and whose post-war life becomes a search for personal liberation and individual love. Tiep's struggles are seamlessly connected to the changes her country is going through, as Da Ngan's daring and controversial novel draws us into the life of a woman who insists on leading a meaningful and honest life-as a citizen, as a daughter, as a mother, as a writer, and as a lover who pursues her own sexuality." - Amazon Book Introduction.

Green Rice: Poems by Lam Thi My Da

"Behind the seemingly simple exterior is the delicate tension between Buddhist patience and contemporary anxiety, between quiet sadness and unabashed joy, between the agrarian past and the urban present, between ancient song and modern free-verse lyric, between family and history, between self and nation . . . The best poems in this collection sound remarkably fresh and nuanced and surprisingly transcendent."—Marilyn Chin

"A delightful aspect of My Da's poetry—indeed, perhaps the hallmark of Vietnamese writing—is the surprising way it summons human feeling from the ancient landscape, from river and field, from fruit and fragrant tree, culling a contemporary self from timeless images. In carrying this across into English, My Da could not have found better translators than Thuy Dinh and Martha Collins, a poet who has studied Vietnamese, carefully listening to its music."—John Balaban

Crossing the River

"Crossing the River presents a wide range of Nguyen Huy Thiep's short fiction, both realistic stories in contemporary settings and retellings of folk myths that serve as contemporary parables. When Thiep's stories first appeared in the 1980s, they set off a chain of debate, not only within intellectual and political circles, but also within the society at large. Typically, the struggles of his characters were about survival, not survival in the context of war or revolution, but survival in the context of the emotional and psychological strength it takes to live within the harsh confines of post-war Vietnamese society. Thiep captured the emotional quality of Vietnamese life in a way no other author had done, and his importance can be recognized today by his enormous influence on younger writers." - Amazon book introduction.

Dumb Luck

"Banned in Vietnam until 1986, Dumb Luck--by the controversial and influential Vietnamese writer Vu Trong Phung--is a bitter satire of the rage for modernization in Vietnam during the late colonial era. First published in Hanoi during 1936, it follows the absurd and unexpected rise within colonial society of a street-smart vagabond named Red-haired Xuan. As it charts Xuan's fantastic social ascent, the novel provides a panoramic view of late colonial urban social order, from the filthy sidewalks of Hanoi's old commercial quarter to the gaudy mansions of the emergent Francophile northern upper classes. The transformation of traditional Vietnamese class and gender relations triggered by the growth of colonial capitalism represents a major theme of the novel." - Amazon Book Introduction.

Black Dog, Black Night

"The poems in Black Dog, Black Night highlight an aspect of Vietnamese verse previously unfamiliar to American readers: its remarkable contemporary voices. Celebrating Vietnam’s diverse and thriving literary culture, the poems collected here combine elements of French Romanticism, Russian Expressionism, American Modernism, and native folk stories into a Vietnamese poetic tradition marked by vivid imagery, powerful emotions, and inventive forms. Included here are 17 postmodern and experimental Vietnamese poets, including the founding editor of Skanky Possum magazine, as well as American poets of Vietnamese descent." - Amazon Book Introduction.

Distant Road: Selected Poems of Nguyen Duy

"...an extended love poem to Vietnam, and to the enduring nobility of its people." -- New York Times Book Review

"Duy's quietly potent war poems are unforgettable." -- The Boston Sunday Globe

"...the first English translation of Vietnams most prolific and widely read poet..." -- Kirkus Reviews