SPECIAL ISSUE
THE CREATORS OF SOUTH VIETNAM:
AT HOME AND ABROAD

NGÔ THẾ VINH, Author / ERIC HENRY, Translator

NHẬT TIẾN AND THE ABANDONED PORCH
Still a Swift-Swallow Rover Scout on the Path of Life

ABSTRACT

Nhật Tiến (1936–2020) was a varied, enterprising, and prolific author. A remarkable feature of his career, perhaps unparalleled in the life of any major western literary figure, was his life-long reliance on the principles of scouting, and the scouting movement, as a source of inspiration and guidance. It often happens that the Vietnamese will adopt some western institution or ideology (in this case scouting) and endow it with an entirely new significance through the intensity of devotion that they invest in it. The present study has two episodes that might appear to interrupt the narrative, but both are highly relevant to the literary history of South Vietnam. The first is an account of the history of the Southern Republic’s National Prize for Literature, and the second concerns the public reaction to the 1963 protest suicide of a literary mentor of Nhật Tiến, the novelist and political activist Nhất Linh. After the downfall of the South, Nhật Tiến was not subjected to “reeducation” for as long a period as many other writers, but did undergo harrowing experiences as a “boat person,” experiences that were the subject of a book he wrote that helped to draw international attention to the plight of boat people. — Eric Henry.

KEYWORDS
Vietnamese literature, scouting, childhood, Nhất Tiến, Nhất Linh

“Wedded now to my profession” (Đã mang lấy nghiệp vào thân)
- Nguyễn Du, author of the narrative poem “Kiều.”

Figure 1. Nhật Tiến. (Photo by Trần Cao Lĩnh).

Scouting at a Young Age

Bùi Nhật Tiến, pen name Nhật Tiến, was born on August 24, 1936 in Hanoi. In 1946, when he was ten years old, he had to relocate with his family to a series of other provinces, including Sơn Tây, Việt Trì, Hưng Hóa, and Phú Thọ. On returning to his old home in 1950, when he was fourteen, he had grown too old to maintain an identity as a “cub scout,” so he asked, rather late, to be admitted to the scouting movement as a member of the “Young Swallows Bình Than Troupe.” The Bình Than troupe belonged to the Đồng Nhân Scout District, which had an official anthem composed by Cung Thúc Tiến, a member of the Bạch Đằng Troupe. This Cung Thúc Tiến was none other than the musician Cung Tiến, who would become well-known for his songs “Cherished Memory” (“Hoài Cảm”) and “Golden Autumn” (“Thu Vàng”).  

The day he made his “oath of allegiance” to become a member of the Scouts of Vietnam, was a memorable one in the life of the writer and teacher Nhật Tiến. The oath-taking ceremony was organized in Láng Temple (Chùa Láng) five kilometers distant from Hanoi. His memoirs, though written sixty years after the event, still reflect the profound emotion Nhật Tiến felt when, at the moment he uttered the oath, what he had dreamed about became a reality:

I tremulously approached the flag of the troupe. My companions were all silent and solemn, as they observed my actions. I stood erect before the flag. With my right hand I made a scouting-style salute. Lightly taking hold of a corner of the flag, I said in a clear, formal manner:  

“Before the country’s flag, which symbolizes the fatherland, and before the troupe’s flag, which symbolizes the Scouting spirit, I beg to swear upon my honor that:
First: I will be loyal to the Fatherland,
Second: I will seek to provide everyone with assistance,
And Third: I will obey all Scouting regulations.”  

After taking a Second-degree Scouting certificate (bằng Hạng Nhì), I was made the Leader of the Swallows Squad. In this squad, one of my young charges was Mr. Đỗ Tiến Đức, who later became a writer, and in 1969 won the National Literature and Art Prize for his work Pink Cheeks (Má Hồng) and became a cinematic director in The Cinema Department (Nha Điện Ảnh), and also the chief administrator of of that organization. He is now the editor-in-chief of The Times (Thời Luận) in Los Angeles. This was at first a printed publication, but has now gone online.

I entered the Kha Đoàn (Venture Crew) when I was seventeen and was preparing to become a full scout at age eighteen. After emigrating to the South in 1954, I was active for many years in the Bạch Đằng Troupe, which had four sub-troupes: Chương Dương, Vân Đồn, Hàm Tử, and Tây Kết. I was given the responsibility of leading the Vân Đồn sub-group. This group included a person named Trương Trọng Trác who later rose to the position of Committee-member of the Scouts of Vietnam—and when he went overseas, he became the editor-in-chief of the newspaper These Days (Ngày Nay) under the pen name Trọng Kim in Houston, Texas. He held this position until his death in 2009.

Figure 2. From this time on, Nhật Tiến was entitled to sign his name as ‘Swift Swallow RS’ (Én Nhanh nhẹn RS) in all his scouting communications. RS stood for “Rover Scout.”

In the summer of 1970, at a camp belonging to the Bạch Đằng Troupe organized at Thủ Đức, I was presented with a walking stick that had on its head two horizontal stripes indicating the rank of “Rover Scout” (Tráng Sinh Lên Đường), a rank that young scouts wished ardently to achieve. From that moment on, I was able to sign my name as “Swift Swallow RS”—RS was an abbreviation for Rover Scout in English and “Routier Scout” in French. It could also be interpreted as standing for “Rendre Service” or “providing assistance,” which harmonized with the stated principles of scouting.

The two words “Hướng Đạo” (“Scout,” or “Scouting”) were always sacred to me; they call up no end of intense feelings, indelible memories, and memories of comrades-in-arms who shared so much with each other, not just within the world of scouting, but out in the world as well.

Now, more than sixty-five years have flown by, Nhật Tiến can still sing the song of his troupe and, in all circumstances, still lives according to the spirit of scouting, with its mottos of “being prepared,” and “helping others.” It seems to me that this spirit of scouting had a deep influence on Nhật Tiến’s whole career as a teacher and writer. Listen to what he himself relates:

The White Shirt People (Những Người Áo Trắng) was written around 1955, when I was teaching at Bến Tre. It was full of recollections of my period of scouting in Hanoi. We would often go on charitable missions. In the winter, for example, we would push oxcarts through the streets in order to contribute donated clothes for children and women to help poor people. Or we would volunteer to stand by Sword Lake (Hồ Gươm) and sell works by the dramatist Văn Thuật to build up a fund to help compatriots whose homes had been flooded back then. We also often went to engage in activities in a camp for orphans on Hàng Đẫy Street. The image of all those orphans wearing white shirts back then, amid white walls, and older girls among the children,  move me a great deal. And I used those images from the orphans’ camp to write my first work, The White Shirt People.

Thus, one can say pretty confidently that if Nhật Tiến had not known those years of activity in the scouting movement, we would not have The White Shirt People, not to speak of the works that came later on, such as The Abandoned Porch (Thềm Hoang).

Figure 3. Nhật Tiến (on the left) with the “Scouting Leaders.”
(Photo taken in Orange County, 2014).

The Period of Dreaming to be a Writer

Nhật Tiến began writing very early; from his early student days, he dreamed of being a writer, and formed a literary group called “Sowing Life” (Gieo Sống). His first story, entitled “The Ring with the Jade Face” (“Chiếc Nhẫn Mặt Ngọc”), was published in the journal, Rivers and Mountains (Giang Sơn). At that time, Nhật Tiến was fifteen.

On emigrating to the South in 1954, he lived at first in Đà Lạt, which, at the time, was still part of an imperial district. While there, he wrote a play for the Royal Musketeers Radio Station (Đài Tiếng Nói Ngự Lâm Quân). A short time after that, he moved with his family to Saigon. Though never a graduate of any school of pedagogy, he began working as a physics and chemistry teacher in various private schools, at first in the Mekong delta—Bến Tre and Mỹ Tho—and after three years, in Saigon. His first novel, The White Shirt People, was begun and completed when he was still teaching in the provinces.

The teaching profession provided a livelihood for the family, but a writing career was no doubt his only great dream. With robust creative invention, he wrote short stories and novels (including one in dramatic form) that appeared in various journals: Culture of the Current Era (Văn Hóa Ngày Nay), New Wind (Tân Phong), The East (Đông Phương), Cyclopedia (Bách Khoa), Writing (Văn), and Literature (Văn Học). He was the chief of the Huyền Trân publishing house starting in 1959, and the editor-in-chief of the weekly, For Children (Thiếu Nhi), published by Khai Trí from 1971 to 1975. In 1979 he managed to reach Thailand after a voyage full of deadly peril and then in 1980 settled in the United States.

After reaching the United States, Nhật Tiến could no longer support himself by teaching, so he trained himself in the field of computer hardware, and after that worked fifteen years for a Japanese company before retiring. Nhật Tiến continued to write and publish while overseas. He also continued his scouting activities and was active in programs aimed at helping boat people. He lived in southern California.

Figure 4. Covers of books by Nhật Tiến published in Vietnam before 1975.
(Nhật Tiến, personal archives).

Though he authored more than twenty works exemplifying many types, his principal creations are all related to the world of childhood. Nhật Tiến can be called “the writer of unfortunate childhood,” a writer with a socialist tendency. In an article on Nhật Tiến in his series of books on the literature of the South, the writer and literary historian Võ Phiến made the following observations: “At that time, everyone knew that there were many well-known writers who wrote about the world of childhood. Each treated the subject in his own way. The children in Duyên Anh’s stories were spirited and clever. The children in the stories of Lê Tất Điều were nearly all naughty. In the stories of Nhật Tiến they were unfortunate.”

Figure 5. The writers Nhật Tiến (left) and Nguiễn Ngu Í (right).

Thoughts Concerning Literary Creation

In 1961, Nhật Tiến had become well known due to three of his published works, The White Shirt People (Những Người Áo Trắng, 1959); Lost Stars (Những Vì Sao Lạc, 1960); and The Abandoned Porch (Thềm Hoang, 1961). In that year, he responded to a number of questions posed to him in an interview by Nguiễn Ngu Í of the journal Cyclopedia (Bách Khoa):

Question: What is the purpose of literary creation? Do you do it for yourself or for everybody?
Answer: In my opinion, there is a close connection between the writer and the society that surrounds him. From the moment the writer begins to work, he is ceaselessly preoccupied with its many scenes and situations. Each day has its detail; each place has its own feeling, regardless of all the things around him that have contributed to his feelings. Thus, when the work is completed, it will always to a greater or lesser extent bring benefit to both sides; the writer has a spiritual reward (I won’t mention any material reward, because that is too small to be worth mentioning) and society gets the benefit of a cultural contribution.

Question: Does the creation of a work follow a defined path, or is it simply a matter of inspiration?
Answer: Perhaps “defined path” here has the meaning of “working method.” If we take it in that sense, I can’t say I have either tendency. Because if you speak of “method,” that means that you have some system, that you follow some compulsory program, whereas if you speak of inspiration, then you must have much time, because inspiration comes only at particular moments. But because I follow a profession [author’s note: he refers here to teaching], there are times when I am exhausted for months and can’t write a line. But when I meet with circumstances that grant me free time, then I will write industriously regardless whether I have inspiration or not. Nevertheless, if I have inspiration, and also free time, then writing is easier.

Question: What happens between the time when a work first begins to form in your mind and its moment of completion?
Answer: I begin with a character who lives amid circumstances that stir me to the utmost. Starting with that character, I write the first chapter. From that point on, I depend on elements that have appeared in the previous chapter (these elements come to me as I am writing) to write the next one. Usually, I start thinking about the conclusion only after I have written nine or ten chapters. In my opinion, this way of proceeding allows one to be more objective than adhering to a plot that has been set up from the beginning. Because if everything is decided in advance, the work will be constrained and many fresh new ideas will in consequence be lost.

Question: What experiences in life and literary creation have pleased you the most?
Answer: As for form, when I write, I like to hold to the idea that I am not engaged in literary composition, for to tell the truth, to describe scenes without falling into clichés is very difficult. To avoid that difficulty, I choose a quite simple style of writing. But choosing is one thing, while following your choice or not is another. That, I think, is a matter for the reader to judge. As for the content of a work, I must confess to you that I am in much perplexity about that, and don’t dare to speak of “experiences” that might be placed in the pages of a journal. As for those of my works that have pleased me the most, it seems to me that the stories of mine that have appeared in print have not necessarily been noticed enough to enable people to know which ones I was referring to, so I must ask to be allowed not to respond to that question. [Nhật Tiến, excerpted from Cyclopedia (Bách Khoa) 115, October 15, 1961, pp, 103-104].

Figure 6. Nhật Tiến, a drawing by Tạ Tỵ (Source: Ten Faces in Today’s Arts [Mười Khuôn Mặt Văn Nghệ Hôm nay], Lá Bối (“Bamboo Leaf”), Saigon, 1971).

In a short article limited to about seven thousand words that deals with an author of more than twenty works, it is hard to introduce Nhật Tiến in an adequate manner. Meeting with him personally, I asked him what works he would choose if he had to name only three to serve as an introduction. The ones he named were: The Abandoned Porch, The Curtain Puller, and Fitful Sleep. Those are also the choices I have made to introduce this very multi-faceted writer.

The Abandoned Porch portrays various lives in “Grass Corner” (“Xóm Cỏ”)‚ a residential pocket full of mud and stagnant water in the middle of Saigon where poor laborers live. Four mournful lines stand at the very beginning of the story. 

Who impelled me to this place, 
Dark by day and black by night?
Cradling a guitar, I pluck sad strains,
Evoking tunes to thrust away the days. 

These four lines serve to introduce the main character, Tốn, a blind performer who ekes out a living as a street singer. A fellow named Ích, without a father but shrewd beyond his years, serves Tốn as a pair of eyes. A prostitute called cô Huệ is well past her time of youth and beauty, but, due the imaginative descriptions of Ích, is still the object of Tốn’s romantic dreams. A woman named U Tám, left a widow while still young, grows infatuated with the honeyed words of a man, later known as Dượng Tám, a perfect ruffian who exploits his wife and is violent with his children. Another character, Lão Hói, pitifully immersed in alcohol and dependant for a living on cardsharping, has a steadfast belief in Providence (Ông Trời.) As for Mr Phó Ngữ, he has been left a widower, and has only a daughter who hopes she will be able to find a kind and attentive husband, but this goal is never achieved. And then there is a a soldier named Năm Trà who, having to go to a distant base, leaves his wife and children with his old mother. The wife, who is young and beautiful, cannot endure this lonely existence and decides to run away. Năm Trà’s mother, because she has insufficient funds to take care of her three grandchildren, has to take them to an orphanage, and afterwards goes mad. . . The fates of these characters living together in “Grass Corner” add up to a dark and tragic portrait of poor people who have no means of escape. Wretchedness is the common denominator in the lives led by the residents of “Grass Corner.” The image of uncle Tốn, the blind street performer, and his companion Ích are always present in the novel’s three hundred pages.

Figure 7. Left: The front cover of The Abandoned Porch (Thềm Hoang) by Nhật Tiến, Đời Này, 1961; Winner of the National Prize for Literature, 1961–1962. Right: The front cover of the novel The Curtain Puller (Người Kéo Màn) by Nhật Tiến, in dramatic form;
Huyền Trân, Saigon, 1962.

The climax of this social tragedy is signaled by the return of the soldier Năm Trà wearing faded and ragged fatigues. He meets his mother, who is now mad and does not recognize him. Faced with the tragedy of his destroyed family, Năm Trà goes mad as well, and to avenge himself burns down the neighborhood. The whole of “Grass Corner” is consumed in flame, along with the despairing cries of its inhabitants. Then a great rainfall descends on the heap of ashes as if intent on sweeping the place clean of the scattered remains of its abandoned porches. Upon reading the last page and closing the book, the reader may wonder if there will ever be a brighter day for the Grass Corners of the future? The content and style of this novel were such that it received the National Prize for Literature in 1961–1962.

Many people hold that Nhật Tiến’s principal strength lay in writing short stories and novels on social themes, such as stories about unfortunate children. Actually, Nhật Tiến also wrote many plays, including works that were performed on the stage. As he writes,

In 1960, when a storm caused serious flooding in the Mekong delta, the Bạch Đằng Scout Troupe and the Gìrl Scout Troupe Thanh Quan participated in an effort to help the victims by putting on a show in Saigon’s Thống Nhất (“Unification”) Theater. For this show I made a three-act play entitled Tempest (Cơn Giông), in which the performers were all members of those two troupes. One of the actors was the lawyer Trần Sơn Hà, who now lives in Orange County, California (A Scouting Life – Một Đời Hướng Đạo, Nhật Tiến).

Nhật Tiến called The Curtain Puller, his fourth work, a “novel in the form of a stage play” (tiểu thuyết kịch). This was a very new concept to apply to “play,” in the word’s classical sense. Due to this, the work stirred up many reactions and disputes. Professor Nguyễn Văn Trung in his Summary Investigation of Literature (Lược Khảo Văn Học), volume 2, expressed disapproval of the new concept, saying: “A novel in the form of a play leads simply to a confusion of two genres in which the particular possibilities of the genres thrown together are erased.” The playwright Vi Huyền Đắc did not accept the idea that The Curtain Puller was a play. But Nhật Tiến himself, after half a century, is still pleased with The Curtain Puller. It was quite bold of him to combine the attributes of a novel, a play, and a film in order to write this work. Instead of having his characters appear on the stage only, he gives them a variety of roles to play in the wider world. The Curtain Puller speaks of a set of relationships among members of an acting troupe, including the director, an old curtain puller, a clarinet-playing musician, an actress, a child, a fund-supplying Maecenas, and an author who writes plays. Every action unfolds amid deception, bribery, scheming, cheating, and conflict, generating tragic misconceptions right in their own lives. They show us the world of people active in the arts. Every character has roles, not only on the stage, but in the world behind it, in the make-up room and in the real world in which all the emotions seethe—delight, anger, love, and hatred—and with no lack of shameful fraud. This is a Nhật Tiến altogether different from the author who overflowed with love in The White Shirt People and The Abandoned Porch; now we have an author suspicious and pessimistic to the point of cruelty.

Fitful Sleep (Giấc Ngủ Chập Chờn) was written in the mid 1960s when the Vietnamese war promoted by Hanoi had spread to every province in the South. Nhật Tiến wrote about the hamlet of Vĩnh Hựu. It was agriculturally productive, and hence a region of both open and hidden conflict. By day it was controlled by the central government, but at night the authority lay with the other side. The families of the people who lived there were riven apart; some people followed this side and some the other, and they lost their lives due to this internecine conflict. They lived, assured neither of life nor death, amid a double wave of bullets and piled-up hatred and outrage that oppressed them night and day. The youths and even the little children of that village had originally all been closely attached to each other, but now that war had spread among them, neighbors and brothers killed each other, creating endless scenes of misery and pain. But the people of Vĩnh Hựu hamlet still remained indissolubly attached to the strip of earth where their umbilical cords were buried and never wished to leave it for another place. The elders often said to the younger folk: “If you young ones want to kill each other somewhere, then do so; but you are forbidden to shoot each other in these lanes and walls. You all come from the same roots and tendrils. In one way or another, you are all connected to each other in family, in flesh, and in homeland. Killing each other on the land of your forebears is disgraceful” (Fitful Sleep, Huyền Trân, 1969, p. 63).

Figure 8. Left: The front cover of Fitful Sleep (Giấc Ngủ Chập Chờn) by Nhật Tiến, Huyền Trân, Saigon 1969. Right: Issue 21 of the journal Văn Hữu, published by Văn Hóa Vụ, 1962.
(Thành Tôn, personal archives).

The book states a truth: that there was no popular uprising of people dissatisfied with the regime within what was called the “Front for the Liberation of the South.” Because of this implicit accusation Hanoi judged the book to be reactionary in the extreme. 

The National Prize for Literature

The National Prize for Literature was established in 1957. The 21st issue of the journal Văn Hữu, published by the Department of Culture (Văn Hóa Vụ) in 1962, includes an article on this prize by the writer Hàn Phong: “A Brief History of the National Prize for Literature,” it pertains to the period of the First Republic:

From Văn Hữu 21, 1962:

The National Prize for Literature had the feature that it placed no restrictions on the content or form of the works submitted for consideration. The works had to have been published during the year under review. In principle, the competition was to be held every year, but since published works were few, the prize was to be awarded for two-year periods.

First Period: 1955–1957.

The board of judges read 206 works published between 1954 and the end of 1956, submitted to them either by the authors or the publishers. These were of all types: books of scholarly research, fiction, poetry collections, and plays. The board of judges included scholars, teachers, poets, novelists, and playwrights, such as  Professor Nghiêm Toản, Nguyễn Thành Châu, Nguyễn Khắc Kham, Father [linh mục] Nguyễn Văn Thích, Trương Công Cừu, Hồ Biểu Chánh, Phú Đức, Bà Tung Long, Vi Huyền Đắc, Đông Hồ, Trần Tuấn Khải, Vũ Hoàng Chương, and Vũ Khắc Khoan. The chairman of the board was the scholar Đoàn Quan Tấn. The award ceremony took place on August 25 in Independence Palace, and the prizes were presented by the president of the Republic of Vietnam.

The winning works, in the category of scholarship, were Popular Literature (Văn Chương Bình Dân) by Father Thanh Lãng, Building Human Dignity (Xây Dựng Nhân Vị) by Bùi Tuân and The People of Former Times (Người Xưa) by Trần Đình Khải.

The winning works in the fiction category were Seeking a Road to Survival (Tìm Về Sinh Lộ) by Kỳ Văn Nguyên, Bringing Heart to the Writing of History (Đem Tâm Tình Viết Lịch Sử) by Nguyễn Kiên Trung (that is, Nguyễn Mạnh Côn), and The Homestead (Nếp Nhà) by Bửu Kế.

In poetry, the winning works were Bright Blossoms (Anh Hoa) by Phạm Mạnh Viện, The Dragon River Poetry Collection (Long Giang Thi Tập) by Trần Hữu Thanh, the Nam Trung Poetry Collection (Nam Trung Thi Tập) by Nguyễn Văn Bình, and The Fate of Fair Ones (Kiếp Hồng Nhan) by Quang Hân.

The winning plays were: Storm of the Era (Bão Thời Đại) by Trần Lê Nguyên, A Bolshevik Love (Ái Tình Bôn-Sê-Vich by Thạch Bích, and A Two-Colored Shirt (Hai Màu Áo) by Minh Đăng Khánh.

Second Period: 1958–1959.

The National Prize for Literature in Period Two had a procedural change; this time the authors did not have to send in their works for consideration. The winning items were instead chosen by the board from all works published in the period from 1958 to the end of 1959. Because they did not conceive of this activity as a competition, the members of the board sought to read everything published in this period. And this time the board of judges changed their name to The National Literature Prize Board 1958-59 [author’s note: previously it had been the Board of Judges].

The National Literature Prize Board 1958-59 was composed of many writers, artists, and professors, such as Hà Như Chi, Hà Thượng Nhân, Đái Đức Tuấn, Trần Hữu Thanh, Đỗ Đức Thu, Đông Hồ, and Vi Huyền Đắc. The chairman was Professor Trương Công Cừu, a Dean in Văn Khoa College. In a five-month period, the members of this board read fifty-four scholarly works, thirty-four novels, and three plays, and in the end awarded seven prizes. The awards ceremony was organized in the Đô Thành Gallery was presided over by Vice President Nguyễn Ngọc Thơ, representing the president.

In the category of scholarship, the winning works were A New Investigation of the Book of Changes (Dịch Kinh Tân Khảo) by Nguyễn Mạnh Bảo, and Vietnamese Literature: A Comprehensive Treatment (Việt Nam Văn Học Toàn Thư) by Hoàng Trọng Miên.

The winning works of fiction were The Boat Along the River (Đò Dọc) by Bình Nguyên Lộc, The Spirit of Turtle Tower (Thần Tháp Rùa) by Vũ Khắc Khoan, The Life of a Pilot (Đời Phi Công) by Toan Phong [author’s note: Nguyễn Xuân Vinh], and Night Rain at Year’s End (Mưa Đêm Cuối Năm) by Võ Phiến.

There was one prize for a book of poems: Lanterns (Hoa Đăng) by Vũ Hoàng Chương.

No prize was issued in the stage-play category.

Figure 9. The National Literary Award Ceremony of 1960–61; from the left: Vương Đức Lệ, Nhật Tiến, Đinh Hùng, Lê Ngọc Trụ, Mai Trung Tĩnh (Nhật Tính, personal archives).

Third Period: 1960–1961.

The Board of Judges for the National Prize for Literature changed direction in this period and adopted a different name: The Board for the Selection of Literary Prizes, 1960–1961. This board was chaired by Thu Giang (Nguyễn Duy Cần) and included three subgroups. The subgroup for scholarly works was made up of Nguyễn Duy Cần, Nguyễn Đăng Thục, and Nguyễn Văn Trung. Another subgroup, for poetry, was made up of Vũ Hoàng Chương, Đông Hồ, and Thanh Tâm Tuyền. The third subgroup was for fiction and was made up of Vi Huyền Đắc, Vũ Khắc Khoan, Đỗ Đức Thu, and Bình Nguyên Lộc. The selection board met three times, and examined 112 works: thirty-seven scholarly books, thirty-four novels, thirty-nine poetry collections, and three stage-plays, with the following results:

In the scholarly category there was one prize only: A Dictionary of Vietnamese Orthography (Việt Ngữ Chánh Tả Tự Vị) by Lê Ngọc Trụ.

In fiction, there were three prizes: The Abandoned Porch by Nhật Tiến, Protect the Gold, Preserve the Jade by Doãn Quốc Sỹ, and The Old Stable by Linh Bảo.

In poetry, there were four prizes: Path Into a Love Story (Đường Vào Tình Sử) by Đinh Hùng, Hope (Hy Vọng) by Hoàng Bảo Việt, Warm Nest (Tổ Ấm) by Anh Tuyến, and Forty Poems (40 Bài Thơ) by Mai Trung Tĩnh and Vương Đức Lệ.

No prize was awarded in the stage-play category.

It seems worth recording here that there were continuous organizational improvements in each period of the National Prize for Literature, but one principle never changed: no requirement was ever placed on the content or form of the works under consideration. This is made clear in an article by the writer Nguiễn Ngu Í in Bách Khoa 138:

Thu Giang (Nguyễn Duy Cần), the chairman of the Selection Board in Period 3 of the prize stated that “criteria of the board was summed up by the word ‘literature,’ meaning ‘fine ideas and beautiful words,’” to which he added “the works chosen will be a reflection of a free culture, meaning that they will not be under the control of any system of thought and will not be required to follow any political or artistic tendency whatsoever.”

After the prizes were issued, Lê Ngọc Trụ, representing all the writers who were awarded prizes, expressed his views on the matter. He said that it was to the greatest degree significant that the day of the award ceremony had fallen on the birth anniversary of Nguyễn Du, and suggested that he and all the prize winners should feel a holy responsibility toward the Vietnamese language and the future of Vietnamese culture (Bách Khoa 138).

This was the third period of the prize and was also the last period that occurred under the First Republic. Due to a series of political upheavals, it was only in 1966 that the National Literary Prize was reinstituted.

It should also be recorded here that in the short nine-year span of the First Republic, culturally active figures established the first firm basis for literature and art in the South. The writers and poets who received prizes were all people who became major names in the twenty-year period of literature in the South, including the poets Đinh Hùng, Vũ Hoàng Chương, the writers Bình Nguyên Lộc, Nguyễn Mạnh Côn, Doãn Quốc Sỹ, Võ Phiến, Nhật Tiến, and Linh Bảo.

Nhật Tiến and the Literary Great Nhất Linh

At the end of 1955, through Trương Cam Vĩnh, the younger brother of the writer Trương Bảo Sơn, Nhất Linh received a draft copy of The White Shirt People, the first-completed work of Nhật Tiến. Nhất Linh saw Nhật Tiến’s talent and at once sent the novel to Phượng Giang for publication. Nhất Linh introduced Nhật Tiến to the PEN Club (Văn Bút), then headed by him, and at the same time invited Nhật Tiến to write for the journal Contemporary Culture (Văn Hóa Ngày Nay). These two enjoyed a close friendship between 1955 and 1963.

In 1963, the political situation in the cities of the South was very turbulent, with demonstrations and self-immolations, while the smoke and fire of the war instigated by the North had spread to all the southern provinces. The death of Nhất Linh (known as an activist by his real name, Nguyễn Tường Tam), was a sign of the tragedy of those times, and was part of the history of that era. The death of Nhất Linh, the leader of the Self-Reliance Literary group was at that time a great shock to the young people of the South. I (Ngô Thế Vinh) wish to record here a few personal reminiscences concerning the testament he left before his suicide.

It seems likely that Nhất Linh made careful preparations for his own death for several weeks prior to killing himself. Pursued by secret agents, he thought it possible that his farewell note might be seized by his pursuers. In 1963 there were as yet no xerox machines, scanners, or publication via internet, such as now exist. Nhất Linh wrote a second copy of his farewell testament to a group of his students. At that time I was in the third year of my medical studies. In the first days of July, 1963 Nguyễn Tường Quý drove his elder brother Nguyễn Tường Vũ (the son of Nguyễn Tường Thụy, the eldest brother in Nguyễn Tường’s family), down to the Minh Mạng college campus (Đại Học xá Minh Mạng) and sought me out. Quý waited outside; only Nguyễn Tường Vũ came to see me. Without saying much, Vũ put a thin envelope into my hands, and let me know that it was the second handwritten copy of Nhất Linh’s farewell testament: “We’ll depend on you to keep this; you can produce it when it is needed.” When Nguyễn Tường Vũ went back, I quietly put this second copy of the testament, a piece of historical evidence, into a book cabinet between some fat hardcover editions of Đào Duy Anh’s dictionaries published by Minh Tân in Paris.

Figure 10. Left: Nhất Linh’s testament; middle: a UPI news notice; and right: Nguyễn Tường Vũ in 1960. (Nguyễn Tường Quý and Nguyễn Tường Thiết, personal archives).

The note, consisting of seventy-one words, was brief and succinct: “Let history be my judge; I refuse to allow any individual to judge me. The arrest and conviction of all opposition elements is a great crime that will cause the country to fall into the hands of the communists. I am opposed to this and hereby destroy myself, like Abbot Thích Quảng Đức who set himself afire, so as to warn those who are trampling upon every liberty.” July 7, 1963; Nhất Linh – Nguyễn Tường Tam.

Nhất Linh sacrificed himself on July 7, 1963. Only one or two days later, a UPI news release written by Neil Sheehan, dated July 9, 1963, announced the event to all the world’s newspapers, in an article entitled, “South Vietnam Eminent Writer Commits Suicide:”

South Vietnam’s most eminent writer committed suicide today as a political protest on the eve of his trial for alleged complicity in the abortive 1960 coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem. Nguyen Tương Tam [mispelled as “Pam” by Sheehan or by his copyeditor], 58, who wrote under the name of Nhat Linh, left an eloquent testament protesting against Diem’s rule. The former nationalist leader died in a hospital after taking poison. The suicide of Tam, considered Vietnam’s greatest writer of the 20th century, came at a time of growing political and religious unrest under Diem’s regime. His death was expected to stir further political repercussions, particularly among the country’s intellectuals. . .  The text of Tam’s short testament said, “History alone will judge my life. I will allow no man to try me. The arrest and trial of all nationalist opponents of the regime is a crime that will force the nation into the hands of the communists.” (UPI, July 8, 1963).

And thus, “copy one” of Nhất Linh’s testament reached the hands of the international world. The copy I preserved no longer had the crucial importance that it had when Vũ put it into my hands. Later, I learned from Lawyer Nguyễn Tường Bá that “copy one” had been delivered to the UPI news agency by the journalist Như Phong.

Nhất Linh’s funeral took place on July 13, 1963. The greater part of those who paid their respects were college and middle school students. What chiefly moved them was that a distinguished writer had died, whereas those who shared his aims wished to represent Nhất Linh’s death as a self-sacrifice for a political end. Ever since the 1930s, Nhất Linh had been a public figure in two realms: literature and politics. The relative importance of these two aspects of his identity varied with the viewpoint of each individual. I still feel that it was his literary role that predominated on the day of his funeral. There was a photograph of the portrait of Nhất Linh done by the artist Nguyễn Gia Trí and a couplet by Vũ Hoàng Chương that made use of the titles of all his books:

The weaver, the pair of friends, all in darkness, you must live; why end it all?
A life of rain and wind, of piercing cold, the white butterfly, no gold at day’s end, just autumn sunlight.

Figure 11. A portrait of Nhất Linh by Nguyễn Gia Trí.

The death of a writer is always a tragedy in itself, if not a devastating misfortune. In some sense, every writer dies segment by segment with each work he writes. We must respect those deaths, and regard them as the common denominator of such people, an alternative to ordinary decomposition. Political regimes disappear; writers live on in their works.

The elegy at the funeral was given by the young writer Nhật Tiến, then aged just twenty-seven, and surrounded by government security personnel. He expressed himself courageously as an independent writer, though at the time he was the vice chairman of the PEN Club (Văn Bút). Shedding deeply felt tears, he spoke thus of the death of the writer: “This great literary spirit embodied the noble mission of the writer. This great man upheld the indomitable traditional spirit of a true writer.”

A few days after Nhất Linh’s funeral, when I met them again, I returned “copy two” of his testament to Nguyễn Tường Vũ and Nguyễn Tường Quý. Nguyễn Tường Vũ, very much an artist, and the man responsible for the layout of Nhất Linh’s journal, Contemporary Culture, died on May 19, 1991 while helping to carry out a United Nations charitable mission aimed at rescuing boat people at Palawan in the Philippines. Nguyễn Tường Quý still remembers how he drove Vũ to the Minh Mạng college campus so he could deliver into my hands the testament of “Uncle Tam” (Nhất Linh).

From Saigon to Koh Kra, the Island of Demons

Stuck in-country after the Communist annexation of the South in 1975, and with no prospect of advancement, Nhật Tiến had to close down his publishing house, Huyền Trân, and put aside his pen. He and his whole family had to go out to the streets and run a café to survive. 

A few days after April 30, 1975, the writers Mai Thảo and Duyên Anh went to eat at this café on Duy Tân street. Next to the café on the same street was another café belonging to Nguyễn Thụy Long, the creator of Loan Mắt Nhung (“Loan of the Velvet Eyes”). Recalling this, Mai Thảo wrote:

The spectacle that struck my eye then, of two cafés sitting side by side, both in front of a long low wall, was a scene of complete contrast. Both were run by writers who had lost their livelihoods and had to manage cafés, facing new circumstances. The café of Nguyễn Thụy Long, with its disorderly array of wine glasses on the tables and the young customers, spoke clearly of the disorderly life that prevailed among them. The café of Nhật Tiến was totally different. It was healthier and had twice as much the air of a family-run enterprise, with neatly placed little dishes of water-spinach next to a smoking hot pan. Nhật Tiến’s wife leaned pink-cheeked over a frying pan of deep yellow shrimp cakes, while the eldest daughter, her hair pulled tight and wearing a neatly pleated skirt, assisted her literary father in everything. I remember that on the day when we all ate there to support the writer’s “Abandoned Porch Café” (Thềm Hoang Quán), each of us had a plate of delicious shrimp cakes, and I said jokingly to Nhật Tiến, “You’re skilled at washing bowls these days, right?” And Nhật Tiến laughed, it was a mild, ordinary laugh, the prematurely wise laugh, perhaps, of a teacher. Nhật Tiến always regarded himself, in all situations, as a teacher: “Skillful, my eye! We all must do what we have to do!” (From “Nhật Tiến Still Stands Outside Beneath the Sun,” Literature, no. 6, California, December 1982).

Nhật Tiến, too, had to attend a one-month “political education” course along with many other writers and artists of the South, such as Hoài Bắc, Thái Thanh, Nguyễn Thị Vinh, Đỗ Phương Khanh, and Nguyễn Thụy Long. . .  His teaching was in physics and chemistry, not literature, so after the one-month course he was able to resume teaching at his old private school. But in the end he was no longer able to be “a teacher in a sleazy time,” so in November of 1979 he decided to brave the ocean. Going with him on that venture was Từ Mẫn (Võ Thắng Tiết), originally the director of the publishing house, Lá Bối (“Bamboo Leaf”). Later, on U.S. soil, he became the director of the publishing house, Văn Nghệ (“The Arts”).

His trip turned into a devastating disaster when they encountered Thai pirates. They lived in hell for several weeks on the island of Koh Kra, afflicted by thirst and by violence. But they survived, were rescued, and were delivered to the refugee camp in Songkhla. There, the writer/boat-person Nhật Tiến became one of the witnesses of the depredations of pirates in the Bay of Thailand. Together with the journalists Dương Phục and Vũ Thanh Thủy he wrote accounts, immediately sent out for distribution, of the tragic disasters that were occurring in the Eastern Ocean, accounts which shook the conscience of the world and which were the first step in the formation of the Committee for the Rescue of Boat People, which continued to be active for many subsequent years.

Figure 12. The writer/boat person Nhật Tiến in 1980, sitting in a refugee camp in Songkhla, Thailand, writing an indictment of the tragedies in the Eastern Sea.
(Nhật Tiến, personal archives).

Nhật Tiến, the Swift Rover Scout at the Age of 80

A week after the above was written, on August 24, 2015, Nhật Tiến had his 80th birthday. Here in America, that is when people are obliged to undergo tests to renew their driver’s licenses. In preparation for that day, he went to an eye doctor to get laser treatment for the retina of his left eye. Before that, he had already had cataract surgery. Afterward, with progressive lenses, he enjoyed 20/20 vision. Then he devoted all his time to getting ready for the written part of the DMV’s exam. At whatever age he had always been enthusiastically attached to life in the full spirit of a devoted member of the scouting movement. Even at age 80 he was attentively studying lessons so that he could go, pen in hand, to take the examination! I am sure he easily passed that test.

Figure 13. From the right: Nhật Tiến and Ngô Thế Vinh.
(Photo by Đào Nhật Tiến, Dallas, Texas).

And then I sent him this literary portrait, with the words, “And so, Nhật Tiến, here is this hurriedly written seven thousand word essay. I must confess it is too short when compared with your full and varied life as a writer, a teacher, and a scout.”

Nhật Tiến was a direct and courageous man. Not everyone feels full sympathy with his actions and he has more than a few times had to suffer the penalty of being misunderstood or ignored. But one thing is not in doubt: whatever he says is the voice of his conscience.

Whatever the circumstances of his life, he has never ceased to be active. As the writer Mai Thảo said of him, He is always there, “standing outside beneath the sun.” For me Nhật Tiến will always be the “Swift Swallow Rover Scout on the Path of Life.”