Product Review

This superb anthology brings together a thousand years of Vietnamese poems for the English-speaking world. Huynh Sanh Th"ng, widely regarded as the preeminent translator of the poetry of Vietnam, here presents more than three hundred poems by 150 poets, some celebrated, some obscure. Many of the poems are not otherwise available in English. The author's historical and critical introduction to Vietnamese poetry, and his abundant explanatory notes throughout the collection, assist readers in understanding and appreciating each work. Huynh observes that Vietnamese people in all walks of life compose, read, and listen to poetry; this collection of poems thus reveals much about Vietnamese language, literature, history, and culture. He has organized the poems-which range from ancient to very recent works-around nine main themes that include Vietnamese views of society, responses to foreign influences, and feelings about such universal questions as relationships between men and women, the role of art in life, and conflicts among social classes. A generous selection of twentieth-century poems represents the work of well-known poets, major political figures, and men and women of the Vietnamese diaspora after the Communist victory in 1975.