The Vietnamese also adopted the Roman alphabet from Europe. At the end of the nineteenth century, with no hesitation, we began using the Roman alphabet rather than the logographic chu Nom system composed of Chinese characters. Chu Nom had been used in Vietnam for several years, but it was rather complicated and difficult to learn, write, and read. Therefore, for years the majority of the Vietnamese population was illiterate. The Roman alphabet, which the French colonizers used, was easy to learn, use, and print. Getting rid of chu Nom and adopting the modified Roman alphabet (chu Quoc Ngu) used in modern Vietnamese was considered a great cultural and linguistic revolution.
And literature, in fact, was this revolution’s greatest beneficiary. Young Vietnamese poets of the New Poetry period in the first half of the twentieth century—who were, for the most part, educated in French schools—used chu Quoc Ngu to write poetry and were no longer bound by the Chinese language and the outdated chu Nom system. Vietnamese novelists and poets of this period learned the quintessence of French Romantic and realistic literatures, and between 1930 and 1945 they produced several great literary works and introduced Vietnamese literature to the Western world. I consider this the golden period in Vietnamese literature, especially prose fiction. Novels written in this period were influenced by great French authors, and one can see the absence of the classical Chinese prose movement in them. The language they use is more familiar, the characters are easy to relate to, the plots are more interesting, and humanism is promoted. Two prominent authors from this period are Vu Trong Phung and Nam Cao, whose fiction is as great as any world masterpiece, even today.
In the autumn of 1945, Vietnam gained its freedom from the Japanese imperialists and the French colonizers. But soon after that, Vietnam was at war again. There were three consecutive Hot Wars in the second half of the twentieth century: the Vietnamese-French War (1945–1954), the American War (1960–1975), and the Sino-Vietnamese War (1979–1990), also known as the Border War with China. Then there was, of course, the Cold War—the global ideological battle between communism (from the former Soviet Union) and capitalism (from the United States).
When the country was at war, literature suffered the same fate. Vietnamese authors, whether voluntarily or reluctantly, wrote to serve the country’s revolution against foreign invaders. They were considered “soldiers on a cultural battlefield” who used their pens as weapons to destroy the enemy. Therefore, they had to put artistic and literary values aside and quickly produce revolutionary works that conveyed the spirit of fighting. These works are often characterized by blood, fire, and hatred.
Vietnamese literature from the period 1945–1990 was also influenced by the dictates of “socialist realism.” Socialist realism, or Stalinist and Maoist propaganda literature, dominated literary production and artistic expression in communist countries, including Vietnam. As a result, Vietnamese literature lost its traditional beauty and gentleness and alienated itself from global modern literary trends.
The concept of “realism” in the term “socialist realism” is, in fact, a kind of antirealism. It glorifies socialism and denounces everything that is contrary to or different from socialism and its ideology. It rejects individualism and advocates for collectivism; thus, it is intended to be the literature of the masses. Although there are a few good—even great—literary works of socialist realism, oftentimes these works are heavily politicized and read like political documents that have been “literaturized.” Socialist realist fiction tends to be tedious, dry, vain, and xenophobic. During the Cold War, Vietnamese readers had access only to this kind of literature written by socialist writers from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China.
Vietnamese readers eventually lost interest in literature produced under the paradigm of socialist realism, and nothing written with this political ideology is known outside of Vietnam. Even today, with conditions much different than those in the pre-1986 period, not many contemporary Vietnamese works have been translated into other languages, and many have been rejected for publication in the West.
In fact, since 1986, especially after the collapse of the communist bloc in 1990, Vietnamese authors have courageously freed themselves from literary restrictions imposed by politics and by the government. The pioneers of this newer style of writing are Nguyen Minh Chau and Nguyen Ngoc, who were once considered important Vietnamese socialist realist authors. They wrote articles, gave talks, encouraged Vietnamese authors to boycott political literature, and called for reform, otherwise known as Doi Moi.
Doi Moi refers to reforms started in 1986 in order to help the Vietnamese economy transition to a market economy by abandoning the cooperative economic model. Although these reforms primarily targeted the economy, they had a sweeping, positive influence on all other aspects of Vietnamese society. Human rights, freedom of speech, and freedom of artistic expression all benefited. Censorship of the media and publishing became less strict compared to that of the pre-1986 period. Vietnam started to open its doors to the world, and literature written by American, British, French, German, Spanish, and Italian authors—both classic and contemporary works—were now translated into Vietnamese and published in Vietnam. This was a great opportunity for Vietnamese writers, especially the younger generation, many of whom are featured in this anthology. They include Ta Duy Anh, Nguyen Ngoc Tu, Suong Nguyet Minh, Thai Ba Tan, Nguyen Van Tho, Vo Thi Hao, and Nguyen Thi Am.
A common characteristic in the work of this younger generation of Vietnamese
