Nguyen Quoc Chanh
Nguyễn Quốc Chánh (1958) is a poet and translator.
He was born in Bạc Liêu, and lives in Saigon. The backbone of the underground literary scene, a fearless critic of the government, he is the author of four collections of poems, Đêm mặt trời mọc [Night of the Rising Sun] (1990), Khí hậu đồ vật [Inanimate Weather] (1997), e-book Của căn cước ẩn dụ [Coded Personal Info] (2001) and samizdat Ê, tao đây [Hey, I'm Here] (2005). His poems have been translated into English by Nguyễn Hương and published in New American Writing (no. 26, 2008). Translated by Linh Dinh, he's also included in the journals The Literary Review, Almost Island and Filling Station, and in Of Vietnam: Identities in Dialogue (Palgrave 2001). Along with Phan Nhiên Hạo and Văn Cầm Hải, he's featured in Three Vietnamese Poets (Tinfish 2001), also translated by Linh Dinh. From the introduction to that book:
- Chanh's first collection, Đêm mặt trời mọc, came out in 1990 and was greeted by a degree of hostility almost comic in its intensity. In an article titled "The Bizarre in Night Of The Rising Sun," the newspaper Youth compared Chanh's work to "a cemetery of the spirit and of the body. There is nothing left for a person to look for or to lean on. [...] This work can only lead man towards madness, irresponsibility, obliviousness towards the present, humans and objects, the lofty and the abject, the real and the fake, right and wrong, virtues and cruelties are here mixed together in a slimy disgusting gob." In an article titled "An Unhealthy Book," the newspaper The People began by complaining of the "somewhat murky and entirely irrational title." Then it evoked Chanh's poem "Prometheus" to predict that both the poet's life and career will perish in a flame he's "toying with."
In 2005, he gave a reading with Linh Đinh at Berlin's Haus der Kulturen der Welt, as part of its Southeast Asian arts festival.
Linh Dinh started this entry.
Nguyễn Quốc Chánh online
- A profile of Nguyễn Quốc Chánh on The Viet Nam Literature Project, with two interviews and many poems translated into English
- Nguyễn Quốc Chánh featured on the Mumbai-based webzine, Almost Island.
- Eight Vietnamese poets in the Brazilian webzine, Sibila, including Nguyễn Quốc Chánh, Phan Nhiên Hạo, Lý Đợi, Lynh Bacardi, Nguyễn Thị Hoàng Bắc, Miên Đáng, Phan Bá Thọ and Trần Vàng Sao, all translated into English by Linh Dinh
- "Thơ là (thờ ơ) khoét cho cái nhục (nhã, dục, vương) bốc mùi", an interview by Lý Đợi, also available in English
- An interview by Linh Đinh, also available in English
- An interview by Vi Ký, also available in English.
- Audio files of Nguyễn Quốc Chánh reading his poems (with a selection translated into German)
- Nguyễn Quốc Chánh page on Tiền Vệ, with many poems
- "Văn phạm, Ðọc & Chợ"
- "Ngôn ngữ và ẩn dụ, ẩn dụ và thơ, thơ và đọc"
- "Một ngày đàng một sàng khôn", on his trip to Berlin
- [https://tienve.org/home/literature/viewLiterature.do?action=viewArtwork&artworkId=12075 loạt nghệ thuật gốm "Xuống Đường" của Nguyễn Quốc Chánh.
- [http://www.saatchionline.com/profiles/index/id/224757 quoc chanh nguyen's pottery art series "Take to the Streets."