When Hoa Ñòa Nguïc / Flowers from Hell was published in 1984, it was awarded the Rotterdam International Poetry Prize while he was still in Hoa Lo prison and it was not known if he were alive or dead. Nguyen Chí Thien and his famous translator Professor Huynh Sanh Thong of Yale finally met in 2005 in the New Haven, Connecticut, home of Professor Thong.