Authors

Professor Nguyễn Đổng Chi (1915-1984) was a famous folklorist, historian, archaeologist, Sinologist, ethnographer, and writer. With over 50 years of writing, his works are extremely diverse, from literary creations, literature research, historical research, to Sino-Nôm studies. His most outstanding contributions are in the fields of collecting and researching literature and folk culture. He presented novel insights on the morphology of Vietnamese folktales, and conducted comparative studies of Vietnamese fairy tales and world fairy tales. Nguyễn Đổng Chi collected and rewrote nearly 2,000 fairy tales, from which he composed the collection Kho tàng truyện cổ tích Việt Nam (Treasury of Vietnamese Fairy Tales) consisting of five volumes. This is currently the set of research books that took the longest time to be completely compiled and printed in Vietnam, at 25 years (1957-1982).As Associate Professor-Dr. Trần Thị An of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences has argued, "The success of his collection of 200 fairy tales is that it is both comprehensive and rich, as well as both selective and representative; it has both the innocence of the oral tradition and also the artistry of a well-crafted narrative. In particular, the narratives in Kho tàng truyện cổ tích Việt Nam manifest national culture and identity, so he completely deserves to be compared with great cultural writers in the world such as Charles Perrault, Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm, and Wilhelm Karl Grimm."

Vũ Đình Giang is a Vietnamese novelist. He was born in Tiền Giang Province, and graduated with a Bachelor of Graphic Design from the Faculty of Industrial Fine Arts at Ho Chi Minh City University of Architecture. In 2000, he won the Fourth Prize in the second installment of the Literature in its 20s (Văn Học Tuổi 20) contest. He currently lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City. Giang's debut novel, Song Song (Parallel), was first published in 2007 and republished in 2011. It is widely regarded as one of the best works of gay fiction in the Vietnamese language. The novel tells the story of two young men who fall in love in Ho Chi Minh City in the early 2000s, set against the backdrop of Vietnam's rapidly changing social and economic landscape.Truly a gem in contemporary Vietnamese literature, the novel has been praised for its compassionate portrayal of LGBTQ+ characters, lyrical prose, and sharp social commentary. It deserves to be on par with the sexiest works of the most famous gay writers of the time.

Trần Dần (1926-1997) was an influential Vietnamese poet and writer known for revolutionizing Vietnamese poetry through his innovations in both form and ideology. Born in Nam Định province, Trần Dần published his first poetry collection "Chiều mưa trước cửa" in 1943. He pioneered the avant-garde "thang thơ" or ladder poetry, moving away from classical forms and meter. His poems exhibit deeply philosophical multi-layered conceits, tackling existentialism and the human condition. According to renowned poet-translator Dương Tường, Trần Dần's innovations mark the second major milestone in modernizing Vietnamese poetry after the Thơ Mới (New Poetry) movement. Though many of his works faced censorship and banning from 1960-1990, Trần Dần persevered in his literary pursuit throughout his life. Major works include the poetry collections Chiều mưa trước cửa (1943), Hồn xanh dị kỳ (1944), Nhất định thắng (1956); the novella Người người lớp lớp (1954); and the novels Đêm núm sen (written 1961, published 2017) and Những ngã tư và những cột đèn (written 1966, published 2010). In 1966, after completing his seminal novel Những ngã tư và những cột đèn (Crossroads and Lampposts), Trần Dần decided to surrender the only handwritten manuscript to the police department as a protest against the rampant censorship of the time. The police held onto the manuscript for decades, locking it away unseen and unpublished until 2010. In 2007, Trần Dần was posthumously awarded the prestigious National Prize for Literature and Arts, recognizing his significant creative legacy. During his lifetime, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hanoi Writers Association.