A Vietnamese Nobel?

Some time ago it was the Malaysians who were worrying about why they couldn't produce a winner for the a Nobel Prize for Literature, now it's the Vietnamese [found via Literary Saloon].

Thuy Linh in the Thanh Nien Daily quotes award-winning poet Inrasara who says that :

Nobel Prize winners ... must do one or all of the following: capture the quintessence of contemporary life like Albert Camus and Ernest Hemingway; explore new ideas that affect the human soul like Jean-Paul Sartre; fearlessly ask the unasked questions of their peoples and countries like Orhan Pamuk; or find new ways of expression that influences their contemporaries like William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez. Can we name a writer in Vietnam who can do these things?

Critics ponder some of the reasons why Vietnamese literature is not flourishing.

Just Be Thankful

... you aren't a writer in these countries.

1) Iran

where according to Saeed Kamali Dehgan in the Observer authors are becoming increasingly disheartened and disinclined to work following the banning of many important contemporary and international novels. (I blogged a short time back about the banning of the Farsi translation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Memories of My Melancholy Whores.) The crackdown has included Persian books too, with writers finding it very difficult to get the official approval they need to publish.

Worse still:

The novelist Yaghoub Yadali was recently illegally imprisoned for 40 days by the government for several passages from his novel Mores of Unrest, a book which had ministry permission. He was eventually charged with dissemination of falsehood and sentenced to three months' imprisonment, as well as being required to write three mandatory articles. This led to an outcry among many Iranian writers, who believe that the government is invading the imagination

The internet is providing an avenue for authors though:

Reza Ghassemi, an important Iranian novelist based in France, recently published his new novel, The Abracadabra Murmured by Lambs, on the internet in a free ebook PDF format instead of facing government censorship and the formal permission procedure. His enovel has been reviewed and welcomed by the huge Iranian blog community much more warmly than if it had been published on paper.

2) Myanmar

where according to the People's Online Daily, authors have been urged :

... to serve the national interest and educate people with literature as well as to lead people applying modern arts, new thoughts, theories and ideas.

Nothing like using your art to prop up a corrupt regime, is there?

It's worth going back to Aida Edemariam's article here for a more realistic view of how things are. The delights include arrests, imprisonment and harassment.

3) Vietnam

where nothing at all seems to be happening on the literary scene. VietNamNet noted* that its authors seem to be in hibernation. Several prominent writers and poets passed on, which could be one the reasons.

Still government crackdowns on writers doesn't exactly create the optimum creative environment, does it?


To point out the obvious : good writing does not thrive under a totalitarian regime.

* found via Literary Saloon.com

Vietnamese Dissident Arrested

I found this story in yesterday's Malay Mail and then dug around some.

Novelist and journalist Tran Khai Thanh Thuy (pen names Nguyen Thai Hoang and Nguyen Thi Hien) was arrested last weekend, according to the VietnamNews:

... for alleged activities in violation of Article 88 of the Penal Code, which makes it criminal to spread propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam.

Thuy was among eight Vietnamese writers who received the prestigious Hellman/Hammett award in February from Human Rights Watch, which recognizes courage in the face of political persecution. (Read the writers' joint statement on the censored books blog.)

Sophie Richardson, deputy director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch, which administers the annual award said at the time that:

This is an especially important year to recognize dissident writers in Vietnam. ... Vietnam’s emerging democracy movement has become bolder, more outspoken and public, making activists more vulnerable to government reprisals. The Hellman/Hammett awards give these writers international attention and some protection. ... These writers’ works and lives embody the Vietnam that the government wants to hide, the one in which there is free speech, independent media, and open access to and use of the internet. Those who think that Vietnam’s booming economy means it is loosening up politically should look below the surface, at the plight of writers such as these.

According to PEN Canada:

Tran Khai Thanh Thuy was apparently briefly detained on 2 September 2006 for her Internet writings, followed by three weeks of daily interrogation sessions. She was again briefly detained on 11 October 2006 and interrogated about the essays 'The Grotto', 'Self-Narration' and 'Dialogue' written after her detention in September. She was also reportedly brought to an open ‘People’s Court’, in which members of the public are forced to participate in the abuse and humiliation of those accused. She is now believed to have been placed under effective house arrest and has been banned from published her writings on-line. Her case appears to be part of a pattern of organized and widespread police harassment of dissident writers and human rights activists in Vietnam ...

Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups say Vietnam's Communist authorities are involved in the most severe crackdown in decades apparently for fear of losing their power base at a time when people, emboldened by economic reforms, are searching for alternatives to the Communist ideology.

This blogger adds her voice to all those asking for Tran Khai Thanh Thuy's immediate release from detention and a cessation of harassment against other writers in Vietnam.

Because freedom of expression is a basic human right!