Do you know any Vietnamese novel translated in English ?

WOW !

A man who read books !? Good for you ...Most people don't know what that means anymore..

To get serious, I don't think you can find many translated local Vietnamese books . They are many reasons for that, and I'm sure you can guess most of  those reasons. However I'm sure they are some in translated into French, which I believe is your native language. You should check it out.   

I believe  the most interesting and powerful books on Vietnam are written by Overseas Vietnamese or foreign writers.  I started a few of them whatever I can get from the internet , just for information. Here is the list of some of the most famous books on Vietnam:

"Catfish and Mandala" - written by Vietnamese- American Andrew X. Pham's

"The Gangster We Are All Looking For"  - by Le Thi Diem Thuy

" The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family" - by Duong Van Mai Elliott

" When Heaven and Earth Changed Places"  - by Le Ly Hayslip


The last book is titled - " Palawan Story "  - a new book by Vietnamese -Canadian writer Caroline Vu.  I've read it because Caroline is a friend of mine and I did the cover of the book.  The Story is about a little girl who left Vietnam with  well known " boat people " and end up in Palawan Island in the Philippines. She lost her memories about the event which hunting her all her life. Not bad story.

In fact all of the books above are about girls or women ..I guess Asian women  are more interesting and fascinated to be portray  than  Asian men .. apart from a dousands  of written books on Vietnam war that is , which I don't include in here... lol 


Cheers

Arnaud

ps. By the way if you looking for quiet place to relax and have coffee tea or cocktail, come  , visit us.

Ivan

Thanks for your reply. Indeed I read books, real ones, with paper and letters printed on it. Ebooks never appealed me, I spend enough time in front of my computer like that. No more screen for god's sake !

Hey, I will just re-create this post in the HCMC part of the forum. I just realized that both HCMC and Saigon exist on the forum. Basically, everyone use HCMC, and almost nobody use Saigon. Just look at how lively the forum is on HCMC compared to Saigon.

Hello,

It's interesting and so am I, you should also visit Xuan Thu Bookstore (on Tran Hung Dao Street) where is specially providing foreign books, translated books, etc.

Hope you find some books as your expectation.

Rgds, Fancisco

yah. Because there is not many foreigners know HCMC is Saigon. "Saigon" is name used mostly by the local.

Be loved Oxford 

Open the window, eyes closed by Nguyễn Ngọc Thuần. That book like Chicken soup for the souls. Wow, you read The sorrow of war already, you must be a bookaholic. I have many of ebooks, some translated Vietnamese novel, if you are interested, I can send you some.
Cheers

Thanks for the info ! I'm not in ebooks for thanks for offering.

I just read "Last Night I Dreamed Of Peace" from Đặng Thùy Trâm. It's a diary from a doctor who worked on the battlefields during the war. Not my kind of book, I didn't even finish it to be honest.

Yeah The Sorrow of War is a great book (did I already said that ?)

seems like you are interested about war books.
Yes, The sorrow of war melt my heart down. Its the best book about Vietnamese war, just in my opinion. Ha, I have a kindle so, i just have my ebooks lately. With Đặng Thùy Trâm, I've read Forever Young at 20 (mãi mãi tuổi 20), not sure Its Last night I dreamed of peace or not. She was a doctor and a solider as well, not sure about her writing and of course could not compare with Bảo Ninh, a professional writer
Ha, Monday is blue day and you make it better now (j/k)
nice time

Hi folks.
Very hard to find, English books of any kind, at least that's my experience, however I have a lot of books here in HCM which I am willing to give to any avid reader.
All the books are factual, from military to politics, crime, biographies and  general knowledge.
Got about 20 books at present.
Contact me if your interested Doug xxx

Mariner42 wrote:

Hi folks.
Very hard to find, English books of any kind, at least that's my experience, however I have a lot of books here in HCM which I am willing to give to any avid reader.
All the books are factual, from military to politics, crime, biographies and  general knowledge.
Got about 20 books at present.
Contact me if your interested Doug 0909493536

for free? Me me...
I would buy a beer to exchange them. How do you think?

I have a few books too, I can lend them if you're interested. I say "lend" because I'm a kind of books freak and I like to keep any book I liked. Just so that when I'm old I can have a huge library in my house

Meeting for book exchange and beer drinking sounds like a smart option

It would be not fair for you because I use kindle for reading (cant let you borrow it, lol). Have have some English books (even read them yet), even bought them for years at Books Festival. yes, exchange books is a good idea, indeed!

Do you know "Diary of a Cricket"? The story is about a life adventure of a young cricket. The story is very interesting and also thrilling. It's kind of like the movie "Cars" by Disney, the cricket is the Lightning McQueen - a young swagger. This book made my childhood, really. You should give it a try Google it, there are many sites selling this book. Have fun reading

Diary of a Cricket by Toai Ho, right ? Apparently it's a common bilingual Viet/English book. I didn't even know this existed. I used to read bilingual French/English when I learned English, it was great. I was wondering if it existed with Viet, you answered my question.

Thanks for sharing !

You're more than welcome man. Btw, his name is To Hoai, I don't know why they reverse it to Toai Ho

Lately I read a few vietnamese books, some mentioned in this topic. Let me list it there.

- Open the Window, Eyes Closed by Nguyễn Nhật Ánh, is indeed a really good book. Read it twice in a row. There's also supposed to be another book from this author, entitled "Give me a Ticket Back to Childhood", but I didn't find it anywhere yet.
- Dumb Luck by Vũ Trọng Phụng, very sarcastic and fun to read, a very good one. There's another book from him that's easy to find: "Prostitution and Venereal Disease in Colonial Hanoi".
- Diary of a Cricket, by To Hoai (also misspelled Toai Ho) was also a very enjoyable read. It's for children, but it's wise enough to be enjoyed by everyone.
- The General Retires and Other Stories by Nguyễn Huy Thiệp is a collection of short stories. Not exactly my kind of writing, but there's one story that I particularly enjoyed.
- The Dusk Wolf by Sói Hoàng Hôn. I just find it last week-end in a bookshop in Huế, didn't read it yet.

After these few months in Vietnam, I think it's safe to say that looking for translated Vietnamese books is a little bit of a hide and seek game. There's no definite place where you will find them all.

For example, "Open the Window, Eyes closed" was very hard to find. I bought it in Hanoi, and I must have seen it in only two or three bookshops at most. Not even sure I saw it in HCMC. It's a shame, since it was a very, very good book to me, maybe the best I read since I've been here.

So, each time I come across a bookstore, I check it out, and this is how I managed to find more and more books. I also check out the souvenir shops for tourists, sometimes there are some good reads lost in the mess.

So if you're a book hunter like me, I'd say: keep hunting. There are little treasures awaiting for you here and there

Hi arebillout,

"Open the Window, Eyes Closed" was written by Nguyen Ngoc Thuan and Nguyen Ngoc Anh is the author of "Give me a Ticket Back to Childhood". They are different authors. 

I would like to know if those book were written with Vietnamese and English appearing side-by-side or they only have English. Can I find "Open the Window, Eyes Closed" (English or bilingual version) in Saigon?

Thank you for the information

Cheers!

Hi !

Indeed, you're right, they're different authors ! I don't know why I've been confused about these two guys forever... I'm bad at handling Vietnamese names, they're very slippery in my mind

I only saw one edition of "Open the Window, Eyes closed" up to now. The cover looks like that. It's English only. As for the place, I bought it in Hanoi. I think I must have seen it once in another store since then, but I'm not sure if it was in Saigon, sorry...

Good luck in finding that book ! If I see it again I'll tell you for sure.

Cheers

Hi,
I was also bad at Vietnamese name. It was Nguyen Nhat Anh in my previous post.

I have just seen the book "Open the Window, Eyes closed" (both in English and Vietnamese version in online website. I hope it's still in stock.

Thanks a lots for the answer!

Dear all,

I would like to share some Vietnamese must-read books in this topic.

Chí Phèo: Vietnamese name/Paria Casse-Cou: French name. Author: Nam Cao
=> I only found the French version of the book. If anyone see the English version, please give a share . I really enjoyed  the deep thoughts implied in the main character's life.
There have 2 other books of this author (Nam Cao) which touched my heart: Đời Thừa and Lão Hac. Sadly, I haven't found the English version of them. Once again, if anyone see the English version, please don't hesitate to share

Nam Cao has a realist style. His works reflect the dark side of society and the tragedy life of poor people.

There have a lot of Vietnamese good books but they haven't been translated into English. (or maybe I didn't know haha)

I would like to list some good short stories here: Hai Đứa Trẻ (by Thạch Lam); Chiếc thuyền ngoài xa (by Nguyễn Minh Châu); Bản án chế độ thực dân Pháp (French name: Le Procès de la colonisation française) (by Nguyen Ai Quoc/Ho Chi Minh)

Cheers!

When you say the books were not translated in English, you mean they have been translated only in French ? Or not translated at all ?

I am very sure 'Chí Phèo' was translated into French which was named 'Paria Casse-Cou' and the original version of 'Bản án chế độ thực dân Pháp' was written in French (named 'Le Procès de la colonisation française').

I am not sure if other books have been translated into foreign languages.

Hey Arnaud,

I may suggest you to read "Nguyen Thi Binh - Memoir - Family, Friends and country" - Phuong Nam Books, translated into English by Lady Borton. A memoir of life in war.

To get to know more about modern Vietnam, I suggest a book of Di Li "The Black Diamond"

Hey "Hymn for the Weekend",

I just spotted the "Open the Window, Eyes Closed" in a bookstore on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai. I think it was the number 225 or something like that. On the odd numbered side of the street, that's for sure. There's a bookstore at number 249, but it's not this one. Keep going and you will see another bookstore that spans on several floors. English books are on the top floor. Good luck with that !

arebillout wrote:

Hey "Hymn for the Weekend",

I just spotted the "Open the Window, Eyes Closed" in a bookstore on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai. I think it was the number 225 or something like that. On the odd numbered side of the street, that's for sure. There's a bookstore at number 249, but it's not this one. Keep going and you will see another bookstore that spans on several floors. English books are on the top floor. Good luck with that !

There are a lots of translated books in Fahasa bookstore in Nguyễn Huệ street and Lê Lợi street. Do try there then. Good luck!

Oh thank you very much for the information arebillout. There are some bookstores which locates on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai st. so I am not sure which store you mentioned. They are also on the odd numbered side. I visited only 2 bookstores there and I would like to give some feedbacks.

On the odd numbered side of the street and also near the roundabout, there is one of store in the Fahasa brand name. Honestly, I don't like this bookstore much because all the books here aren't preserved well. This bookstore also don't have a lot of books. However this store offers a pretty good price for stationery.

There is a new store next to Fahasa which named "Cá chép". It is a new brand name. The  ground floor impressed me by nice and tall bookshelves. If you can't find your book, you can ask staffs here to check it for you. They have an online system which just take a few seconds to find out your book. This bookstore also has a place to read on the highest floor and on the 4th floor (not so sure) there has English books and old/used books. All in all, there has a lot of books here and it is nice, well-decorated place but the price for stationery is always higher than Fahasa.

I wonder if you have known about Secondhand bookshops in Saigon?

I think the bookstore I'm talking about is "Cá chép", you will find "Open the Window..." there, on the last floor.

I don't know much about second-hand bookshops in Saigon. If you go on the book street (Nguyễn Văn Bình, next to the Notre-Dame basilica), and ask for English books, people will redirect you to one of the bookshops on the street (don't remember its name), which have only English books. There you can find a few second-hands books.

Ah there are a lot of secondhand bookshops on Tran Nhan Ton st., district 5. I would like to suggest for anyone who are book hunters. A lot of unique and valuable books are hiding in secondhand bookshops (:

My suggestions are  Dumb Luck and Tryện Kiều ( English version).

How did this get split into two threads?

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=551677

I thought it looked familiar.  I fully concur with Quynh's second suggestion.  I read the translation by Huynh Sanh Thong and found it both scholarly and an easy read.  It is to Vietnam as Longfellow's Evangeline is to the US, (but with more implied sex.)  Hate to stick my neck out and correct a young Viet scholar on the title but I think she had a typo and left out the "u".  Truyện Kiểu.

I didn't know of Dumb Luck but I looked it up on Amazon and it looks interesting.   The Amazon blurb say that it was banned in Vietnam until 1986.

yes Dumb Luck is a really good one. I read and watched the film. It was banned cos it was too much sex in the book, I guess.

@ THIGV

How did this get split into two threads?
https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=551677

yep I messed up a bit, posted in Saigon and in Ho-Chi-Minh. The two cities exists in the forum and are different cities. The whole forum is spllt in two...

Now I see why.  I have recently changed my habit and instead of hitting the Forum button in the top row right to return, I go to the path row below the expat,com (ex: Forum/Asia/Vietnam/Saigon/Leisure/Do you know....) and hit the word Vietnam there.  Thanks.  BTW this is a great thread.

Ask around and see if you can find the classic "Paradise of the Blind" by Duong Thu Huong. I taught it years ago at Long Beach City College south of L.A. Great book.

Funny you talk about that book ! I just bought it two days ago ! But not in Vietnam, I found it in a second-hand shop in Sydney, Australia.

They say it's been banned by the Vietnamese government, so I don't know if it's possible to find it within Vietnam though.