Nguyen Du - The most significant work of Vietnamese literature. The poem recounts the life, trials and tribulations of Thuy Kieu, a beautiful and talented young woman, who had to sacrifice herself to save her family

Nguyen Du, The Tale of Kiêu: A bilingual edition of Nguyen Du`s Truyên Kiêu.  Yale University Press, 1987.


www.deanza.edu/faculty/swensson/kieu.html



The Tale of Kieu is an epic poem in Vietnamese written by Nguyen Du (1766–1820), and is widely regarded as the most significant work of Vietnamese literature. In 3,254 verses, written in luc bat (6/8) meter, the poem recounts the life, trials and tribulations of Thuy Kieu, a beautiful and talented young woman, who had to sacrifice herself to save her family. To save her father and younger brother from prison, she sold herself into marriage with a middle-aged man, not knowing that he is a pimp, and was forced into prostitution.




We desperately need a good translation of “The Tale of Kieu,” a Vietnamese classic that has yet to be translated in a way that adequately balances the verse form of the original with a contemporary English language style. I have heard a rumor, hopefully true, that John Balaban is working on a new version, and if the rumor does prove to be true the English reading world will be much the better for it. I would love to see the collected works of Ho Anh Thai translated, and the same for Ma Van Khang and Bao Ninh. These three are the pillars of post-war Vietnamese literature. I’d also like to see a collection of Phan Trieu Hai’s stories translated—he’s had one translated for Wayne Karlin’s collection Love After War, but that’s all that I know of. - Charles Waugh