Tale of Kiều — A Timeless Cultural Heirloom
A brief analysis of Tale of Kiều by Nguyễn Du and its impact on the Vietnamese people.
At the start of his brilliant bilingual edition of Nguyễn Du’s Tale of Kiều, Huỳnh Sanh Thông wrote:
“Tặng đồng bào tị nạn Việt Nam cùng thân hữu khắp thế giới.”
“To Vietnamese refugees and their friends throughout the world.”
If anyone understood what being exiled feels like, it would be Nguyễn Du (and, to some extent, Huỳnh Sanh Thông). Nguyễn Du lost both of his parents at a young age. And when his adult life began, seemingly with a bright future ahead, Vietnam’s political scene changed dramatically. As a result, Nguyễn Du was homeless for a short time and then travelled across China from 1788 to 1790 before returning to a country in continuous turmoil.
I don’t think Nguyễn Du ever truly healed from the trauma he endured, at least not until he wrote Truyện Kiều (傳翹, or Tale of Kiều).
You may have never heard about Tale of Kiều, also known as Đoạn Trường Thanh Tâm (斷腸新聲, “A New Cry from a Broken Heart”), or Nguyễn Du. And yet, this work has endured from its publication in 1820 till today and gained the reputation of a literary favourite to many generations of the Vietnamese people. Sadly, Nguyễn Du never saw his work…
