Life, Poetry, and Prison--Cuoc Song, Thi Van, va Tu Day is a new bilingual publication of the poetry of Nguyen Chi Thien especially designed in small inexpensive size for students use and organization benefits.  The author and his editorial assistant, Allies for  Freedom publisher Jean Libby, will be presenting some of these poems at the Milpitas Community Library on July 14, 2007.  The Vietnamese reading is at 3:00 p.m.; English reading at 4:15 p.m., and a reception at the the library is at 5:15 p.m.  Admission is free and all are welcome.  40 N. Milpitas Blvd. 95035

The Friends of the Milpitas Library program sponsors have prepared a souvenir for attendees which commemorates the anniversary (Ky Niem Hoa Dia Nguc) on July 16, 1979 when the author brought his manuscript of prison poems to the British Embassy in Hanoi, asking that they be published in "their free country."  The souvenir reproduces the original handwritten French inscription by the poet (he brought it first to the French Embassy on July 14, 1979 but was unable to get in), the English translation published by the Index on Censorship in London in July 1982, and a new handwritten translation in Vietnamese by the author.  The original inscription and English translation was first published by Que Me in 1982 in a trilingual collection Nguc Ca--Chants de Prison--Prison Songs--with music by Pham Duy.  This is reprinted with the permission of the original publisher in 1982, Que Me in Paris. 

 Nguyen Chi Thien, then age forty, was arrested by the Vietnamese police outside the gates of the Embassy in Hanoi and spent the next twelve years in Communist prisons, eight of them in solitary darkness and leg stocks.  His release in October 1991 was generated by international outcry with the Prisoner of Conscience campaign by Amnesty International, who are assisting the author at the Milpitas Library on July 14 and will be represented by Jean Libby, the publisher of Life, Poetry and Prison--Cuoc Song, Thi Van, va Tu Day and editor of VietAm Review.  Books will be available at the event.  

 After Nguyen Chi Thien immigrated from Vietnam to the United States in November 1995 (the only North Vietnamese citizen in the H.O. program who was never associated with the U.S. or South Vietnamese governments or military) he was awarded a Fellowship by the International Parliament of Writers.  He wrote the Hoa Lo Tap Truyen, seven stories in prose which take place at the Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi from experiences during his incarceration there from 1979 to 1985. 

These seven stories have been translated into English by four friends of the author, including Nguyen Ngoc Bich of the East Coast USA Vietnamese Publishers Consortium who has published the complete Hoa Dia Nguc poems (in Vietnamese) in 2006 and is the original publisher of the Hoa Lo Tap Truyen in Vietnamese in 2002.

 The new book, Hoa Lo/Hanoi Hilton Stories will be published by the Yale University Council on Southeast Asia Studies later in 2007.  To complete the circle, the Yale Council on Southeast Asia Studies, Professor James Scott, (then) director, published a bilingual edition of the Hoa Dia Nguc/Flowers from Hell in 1984, which translations in English were by Prof. Huynh Sanh Thong.  This publication was responsible for the Rotterdam International Poetry Award of 1985 being presented in abstentia to Nguyen Chi Thien, who was still at the Hoa Lo/Hanoi Hilton prison and his whereabouts were unknown to the outside world. 

 His first formal hearing by the Communist government of Vietnam after his arrest in 1979 was held in 1988.  He had been moved from the Hoa Lo ("Hanoi Hilton") prison to he B-14 camp in 1987.  He had been "awaiting trial" since his arrest in front of the British Embassy on July 16, 1979.  This camp was particularly brutal, and the poet was kept entire 45 months at B-14 in leg stocks, in solitary darkness.  One of his fellow prisoners there was Hoang Minh Chinh; another was Vo Dai Ton. 

The poet of resistance was moved to the Ba Sao Prison at Nam Ha in early 1991, which is the current prison of Father Nguyen Van Ly.  He was released in October 1991, just prior to an announced inspection by the International Red Cross.  Although the Vietnam government released Nguyen Chi Thien and one other longtime prisoner, this was the beginning of the second imprisonment of Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, sentenced to twenty years.  (This information comes from the Washington Post, December 4, 1991)  See also http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA410082003?open&of=ENG-VNM 

The author was presented commendations from the Mayor of Milpitas, Jose Esteves, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, and the Viet Arts Institute. 

Jean Libby, editor

VietAm Review

  Allies for Freedom Publishers