Dr. Dan Duffy and the Viet Nam Literature Project by Jean Libby, author

 

Four years ago, in October, 2008, the Vietnamese dissident poet Nguyen Chi Thien asked me to help bring his work to a wider world.  Well-known in the original Vietnamese in the diaspora in Europe, Canada, Australia, and the U.S.A., his Hoa Lo Stories were recently translated into English by four friends. 

 

At the same time, Dan Duffy, a graduate of Yale who was working on his Ph.D. in Vietnamese Literature at the University of North Carolina, created the Viet Nam Literature Project, which promotes Vietnamese literature and supporting materials in English translation in America and in the world…”to understand the social realities of the nation that has playing so great a role in the life of the modern world, and to develop Vietnamese literature as a field of study.” 

 

Dr. Duffy’s method of communication is the Internet.  There is a website, www.vietnamlit.org , with free download of materials for teaching and research assistance.  There is Vikivietlit, online reference to Vietnamese literature, written by experts, edited by poet Linh Dinh. 

 

Nguyen Chi Thien was the first featured author on VNLP, concurrent with a lecture at Yale University, where Dan Duffy had graduated in 1982 and served as the editor of The Viet Nam Forum for the Council on Southeast Asia Studies from 1994 to 1997. 

 

Literature News, Number Six, Winter 2009 traces the publication of four books by Nguyen Chi Thien in four years:  Hoa Dia Nguc (the complete poems, in Vietnamese) published by Nguyen Ngoc Bich (2006); the English language Hoa Lo / Hanoi Hilton Stories , by Yale Southeast Asia Studies (2007), and two bilingual books published by Jean Libby (Allies for Freedom publishers)  Life, Poetry and Prison, Cuoc Song, Thi Van, va Tu Day; Nguyen Chi Thien’s poetry translated by Nguyen Thi (2007), and Hai Truyen Tu – Two Prison Life Stories; Nguyen Chi Thien’s prose in bilingual text (2008). 

 

As well as publishing the covers of the new books, Dan Duffy memorializes Huynh Sanh Thong with a poignant essay that explains the way that “virtuosity, self-education, and revolt [were] the gestures of his life.”  He includes photograph taken by Quang Phu Van, senior lector at Yale, in April, 2005.  The occasion was a visit by Nguyen Chi Thien to the home of Professor Thong and Mrs. Van Yen Huynh in Hamden, Connecticut.  In 1985, the Hoa Dia Nguc / Flowers from Hell poems of Nguyen Chi Thien, translated by Huynh Sanh Thong, won the International Poetry Prize at Rotterdam while the author was rotting in the Hoa Lo / Hanoi Hilton prison in Hanoi. 

 

The Viet Nam Literature Project is tax deductible. I encourage everyone to honor Dr. Dan Duffy’s vision of “support of the freedom and influence of Vietnamese writers by working for their public recognition “by becoming a member at $25 (or more), mailed to VNLP, 5600 Buck Quarter Road, Hillsborough, NC 27278,