In this week’s dispatches of literary news from around the world, the struggle of Vietnamese refugees is commemorated in text and art, a new documentary celebrates Thích Nhất Hạnh, and a new Guatemalan award honours the country’s female writers. Read on to find out more!
Thuy Dinh, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the Vietnamese Diaspora
Besides T.S. Eliot, April also seems problematic for refugees of the former Republic of South Vietnam. On April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese Communist forces captured Saigon—the capital of South Vietnam—ending the Vietnam War, yet triggering a mass exodus of South Vietnamese who fled their fallen nation for political asylum in the West. In recent years, descendants of these refugees have pursued creative efforts to redefine/translate “Black April” as a time of remembrance and rebirth. For example, the traveling exhibit Textures of Remembrance: Vietnamese Artists and Writers Reflect on the Vietnamese Diaspora, curated by the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN), and currently shown at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, in Oakland, California, introduces a spectrum of “textured” responses to April 30 via visual media, poetry, and prose, to construct an intimate yet diverse composite of the diasporic experience that has been collected, recollected, and reimagined since 1975.
The theme of remembrance and rebirth also manifests in a new Vietnamese translation of The Song of Quan Âm (Quan Âm Tế Độ Diễn Nghĩa Ca), about the life of Avalokiteshvara—the bodhisattva of compassion—known commonly as Quan Âm, who is endowed with the ability to see (quan) and hear (âm) all human sufferings. Translated and annotated by scholar Nguyễn văn Sâm, this anonymous 7,228-line poem—the longest poem originally written in Nôm or the Southern script—vividly illustrates Buddhist concepts such as karma, reincarnation, and filial piety. The book’s magisterial scope, only the second translation since 1925, also reflects the translator’s fervent wish to preserve Nôm—a writing tradition adapted from Chinese ideographs and containing a wealth of premodern Vietnamese thought—yet is mostly neglected today due to the adoption of the Romanized script.
Compassion, inextricably linked to remembrance and rebirth, is eloquently evoked in A Cloud Never Dies, a twenty-seven-minute documentary on the life and teachings of the late Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh. Released on April 2 by the International Plum Village Community in response to the war in Ukraine, the film highlights Thích Nhất Hạnh’s philosophy of engaged Buddhism that combines meditation with antiwar activism. Articulated in his 1967 book Lotus in a Sea of Fire (Hoa Sen Trong Biển Lửa), Thích Nhất Hạnh’s practice lent moral support to Vietnamese during the war who refused to take sides and simply wanted the bombing to end. This perspective, however, resulted in his thirty-nine-year exile in the West.
José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Central America
Editorial Alfaguara just released the debut novel of Guatemalan poet Julio Prado, entitled La noche viene sin ti / The Night Falls Without You. In it, Gonzalo Ríos, a young prosecutor, is assigned to investigate illegal adoptions. Prado, who has also worked as a prosecutor in Guatemala City, said that “between 2005 and 2008, Guatemala was the country that exported the most kids to the US. People who handled the adoptions, however, used false documents or straight-up stole children, like the case I tell in my novel.” Additionally, he calls La noche viene sin ti a thriller and a noir novel.
Julio Prado (1979) has published two other books. A book of poetry called Rockstar! (Editorial Catafixia, 2010) and a book of short stories entitled Satanás cabalga mi alma (Editorial Cultural, 2010).
Additionally, Guatemala’s F&G Editores, with the help of Banrural, just launched the Bienal Guatemalteca de Novela “Terrena,” a literary award meant to promote the work of Guatemalan female writers, and only other female writers will be part of Terrena’s jury. F&G Editores is led by Raúl Figueroa Sarti, who won the prestigious APP’s Freedom to Publish Award last year. Terrena’s winner will be announced on October 7.
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