- Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
- Editor: Kevin Bown, Nguyen Ba Chung, and Bruce Weigl
- Edition: First
- ISBN: 978-1558491410
- Published: September 18, 1988
A bi-lingual anthology of seventy-nine Vietnamese poems written in the years between the end of World War II and the beginning of “normalization” of relations with the United States.
Translated and often co-translated by various contemporary Vietnamese and American poets, the book contains biographies of the writers included, and an introduction by Nguyen Ba Chung, “The Field of Vision in Vietnamese Poetry.”
Tran Dang Khoa’s poem, “The Alabaster Stork,” co-translated by Fred Marchant and Nguyen Ba Chung is included in this volume.
Translation of poetry from Vietnamese to English presents difficult problems; these translations are among the best I’ve ever seen. The book will appeal to scholars and teachers in the fields of Viet Nam War studies, postcolonial literary studies, and Pacific Rim studies. It could easily be used as a course text, as well as provide important material for scholars. … A most useful and beautiful work. —Renny Christopher, author of The Viet Nam War/The American War: Images and Representations in Euro-American and Vietnamese Exile Narratives.
The quality of the translations is excellent. — Ngo Nhu Binh, Harvard University.
Whatever has happened, the land always lives within us, / The spiritual stream untainted / Poetry still lives; the people are alive. . .–Nguyen Duy, from “Our Nation from a Distance”