UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Poems

Book Jacket: "The Women Carry River Water" by Nguyen Quang Thieu

Nguyen Quang Thieu
Translated and edited by Martha Collins and Nguyen Quang Thieu

A bilingual collection of poems by a celebrated Vietnamese writer

This book is the first English translation of a collection of poems by a Vietnamese writer of the post-1975 generation. Author of four books of poetry, four novels, and two short story collections, Nguyen Quang Thieu is considered by many to be the most prominent northern Vietnamese poet to have emerged since the American War, which ended when he was in high school. His book The Insomnia of Fire (1992) won the Writers' Association National Award for poetry, one of Viet Nam's most prestigious literary prizes.

Selected and arranged from Thieu's most recent work, including The Insomnia of Fire, this volume is bilingual in format, featuring Vietnamese and English on facing pages.

Whether recalling the village of his childhood or exploring the rural and urban complexities of his adult life, Thieu roots his poems in a Vietnamese tradition that honors place. His respect for the passage of time conveyed throughout the collection is traditional, but he moves fluidly through landscapes of the past, present, and future with distinctly contemporary juxtapositions and metaphors. While few of the poems mention the war directly, its effects are both felt and transcended in these sometimes sad but always strikingly beautiful pieces.

"This book is both timely and necessary for those who are interested in learning more about contemporary Vietnamese culture, literature, and poetry. The translations are perfect."

Ngo Nhu Binh, Harvard University
"This is an important book. . . . The clarity of these poems in English makes them accessible to students from college to high school."

Bruce Weigl, co-translator of Poems from Captured Documents

Martha Collins is professor of English and creative writing at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her third book of poems, A History of Small Life on a Windy Planet, won the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award.

Born in Ha Tay Province in 1957, Nguyen Quang Thieu now lives in Ha Noi, where he is editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Van Nghe.

Poetry / Viet Nam Studies
136 pp.
LC 96-48658
$27.50s cloth, ISBN 1-55849-086-8
$16.95t paper, ISBN 1-55849-087-6
1997
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Published in cooperation with the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Its Social Consequences

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