It's always been the same: good fortune seldom came the way of
those endowed, they say, with genius and a dainty face. What
tragedies take place within each circling space of years 'Rich in
good looks' appears to mean poor luck and tears of woe; which may
sound strange, I know, but is not really so, I swear, since Heaven
everywhere seems jealous of the fair of face. The tale of Kieu, a
talented young girl, was written in verse in Vietnamese by Nguyen
Du, who lived in Vietnam from 1765 to 1820. Although the story is
set in China, it was the greatest work of literature until then to
be written in the Vietnamese language, and many would say it is
still unrivalled. It tells the story of Kieu, a beautiful girl, who
falls in love with Kim, a handsome student, and they become
engaged. But while Kim is away, Kieu's father is arrested on a
false charge, and Kieu follows the Confucian teaching that duty to
one's parents overrides all other duties, and gives herself to be
sold as a bride to a stranger. Her life continues with terrible
suffering alternating with periods of relative happiness, but
always she dreams of Kim. But eventually they are reunited and
there is a happy ending. Michael Counsell lived as a civilian in
Vietnam for almost four years during the Vietnam War. He read the
tale of Kieu, and was deeply moved by the human drama and the
descriptions of nature. It seemed to symbolise the suffering which
the Vietnamese people, and especially Vietnamese women, endured
during the twentieth century. Among the many misunderstandings of
the Vietnamese people by the English-speaking world in our days, he
says, we must include the failure to understand that they are a
nation of poets and heirs to a great culture. So to make this story
more widely known, he started to translate the poem into English.
This was probably the first and may still be the only translation
made by a native speaker of English directly from the Vietnamese
into English verse using the same scansion and rhyme-scheme as the
original. Michael visited Hanoi in 1994, and was again struck by
the beauty of the scenery and the friendliness of the people. His
translation of Kieu was published in a bilingual edition, with
beautiful illustrations, by the The Gioi Publishers. But it has
proved difficult to buy that edition outside Vietnam, so in order
that many more people should be able to enjoy it, the English text
only is now published by Createspace, a branch of amazon, and also
aas an e-book on Kindle. Michael Counsell is now living in
Birmingham in England. His dream is that eventually, like Edward
Fitzgerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, his
translation of Kieu may prove as popular among English-speakers as
with those who can read the original. Janet Marshall writes: Kieu
is not a love story in the romantic, light-hearted sense. But it
expresses not only the profound and lasting love between Kieu and
Kim, but also their patience and endurance through years of cruel,
undeserved trials. Yet even through the darkest parts of the poem,
the reader has hope of the triumph of goodness over evil, and that
Kuan-Yin will eventually bring about a happy ending. All the
characters are delicately drawn, and bring a Far Eastern culture,
with its modes and manners, vividly to life. So many stories from
far-away lands lose much of their fascination and genuine warmth
and believability in translation. It is not so in this instance.
Michael Counsell, with a true understanding for, and sympathy with
the Vietnamese traditions, has brought before the English reader a
literary experience of extraordinary beauty.
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