Introduction: Writing and Publishing in Vietnam - Brief Article

Literary Review, Wntr, 2000 by Linh Dinh

The late 80's was a heady time for Vietnamese literature. A more tolerant stance by the government towards publishing allowed many writers to emerge, most notably Duong Thu Huong, Bao Ninh, Nguyen Huy Thiep and Pham Thi Hoai. It appeared that a country so overburdened with recent trauma was finally allowed to tell its stories. The floodgate has been opened.

This optimism did not last long, however. Progressive liberalization in the cultural arena did not quite materialize as expected. Duong Thu Huong, the most political of the prominent writers, was quickly silenced. Although translated into nearly a dozen languages, Huong's books are unavailable inside her own country. (In a 1993 essay on contemporary Vietnamese women writers, one Hanoi critic mentioned nearly 30 names, but not Huong, the most famous Vietnamese writer alive!) Bao Ninh and Nguyen Huy Thiep continue to publish an occassional piece, but the quality of their recent works have dropped off considerably compared to their outputs of only a decade earlier. Pham Thi Hoai has emigrated to Germany. (Her latest novel, and perhaps her best, "Mary Sen" ["Gaudy Mary"] was printed in California and banned in Vietnam.) The situation is so anemic that when Nguyen Viet Ha's "Co Hoi Cua Chua" ["God's Chance"], a sloppy novel about Hanoi's in-crowd, Vietnam's answer to "Less Than Zero," came out in 1999, Thiep hailed it as "the most significant [Vietnamese] novel of perhaps the last ten years."

The biggest obstacle to a lively literary scene is the government's monopoly on publishing. There are no independent presses or journals in Vietnam. If an editor decides to print a "decadent" or "reactionary" piece in his publication, he risks being reprimanded or even fired. And listed on the last page of every Vietnamese book is an individual "responsible for this publication."

In this climate of intimidation, only certain realities are depicted. I read through 100 stories in a recent anthology, but did not encounter a single prostitute, a farcical contrast to the situation on the streets; nor a Taiwanese, whose bride-shopping expeditions in Vietnam are a topic of everyday conversation; nor any mention of government corruption. The serious issue of widespread poverty is also reduced to a handful of sentimental accounts of doe-eyed child beggars. A writer living in Vietnam knows by heart what is allowed, and often tailors his productions accordingly.

(This control apparatus is not airtight, however. A well-connected editor, backed by powerful allies, can still muscle a publishing project through, and ignore any resultant criticism.)

Deprived of legitimate forums at home, many Vietnamese writers have turned overseas for their audience. Van Cam Hai and Phan Huyen Thu, two young poets living in Hue and Hanoi, respectively, publish almost all of their works outside Vietnam. And Hue-based Tran Vang Sao's only book of poetry came out in the US in 1995. The epicenter of Vietnamese literature is in California. Two Orange County journals, Khanh Truong's Hop Luu and Khe Iem's Tho, regularly feature the best Vietnamese writing worldwide. These publications are then smuggled back into Vietnam where they circulate among the literati as photocopies.

Some of the best Vietnamese writing is also being produced overseas. The diaspora resulting from the Fall of Saigon in 1975 has scattered Vietnamese to all corners of the earth. There is Tran Vu, a computer analyst who fled Vietnam by boat in 1978, writing rigorous, complex stories from his new home in France. There is the aforementioned Khe Iem, a maverick poet who works as a deliveryman for Domino Pizza in Southern California. There is the cosmopolitan Do Kh, composing poems and stories set in various exotic locales. There is Tran Ngoc Tuan, a drifter bouncing across Russia, Germany and the Czech Republic, emerging as one of the most astute chroniclers of life in his native northern Vietnam.

The ability to write, and to publish, away from Big Brother's shadow comes at a price, however. An overseas Vietnamese writer is someone working in isolation. He's cut off from what should be his main audience: the reading public in Vietnam. Since 1975, there have been exactly two books written by emigre published inside the country: a novel by Nguyen Mong Giac and a travelogue by Do Kh.

This barrier extends even to the internet. Overseas Vietnamese web sites, literary or otherwise, are routinely firewalled inside the country. What you have, then, is a very fragmented literary scene, with many writers having little or no access to their contemporaries' works.

Of the writers included here, only poet Nguyen Quang Thieu, a former member of the police force, has managed to be endorsed by the state yet still respected by his peers. The rest have endured various degrees of harassment over the years or are unpublished in Vietnam altogether.