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Showing 1 - 8 of 8 matches in All Departments
During the Vietnam war, John Balaban traveled the Vietnamese countryside alone, taping, transcribing, and translating oral folk poems known as "ca dao." No one had ever done this before, and it was Balaban's belief that his project would help end the war. The young American poet walked up to farmers, fishermen, seamstresses, and monks and said, "Sing me your favorite poem," and they did. "Folk poetry is so much a part of everybody's life, my request didn't seem like such a strange proposition," Balaban writes. The resulting collection-the first in any Western -language-became a phenomenon within the American Vietnamese community, but the book slipped out of print after the original publisher folded in the '70s. This revised, bilingual edition includes new poems and an eloquent introduction explicating poetry's importance in Vietnamese culture. "The Painting "In early dynasties, Chinese emperors used to send out officials to record the poetry of the common people because folk songs were believed to be the truest indicators of popular feeling. . . . Consider this book such a sampling. Take it as a guide and enter this world of Taoist sages, parted lovers, melon gardens, concubines, exiled kings, wheeling egrets, rice paddies, bamboo bridges, shimmering moons, and fishtraps."-from the introduction "These oral poems are direct (though not beyond slyness), simple in language, poignant. . . . Recommended for all collections."-"Library Journal" John Balaban is the author of 11 books of poetry, prose, and Vietnamese translations. His "Spring Essence: The Poetry of HA XuA[n Huong," has sold 20,000 copies. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he teaches at North Carolina State University.
H Xu n Huong--whose name translates as "Spring Essence"--is one of the most important and popular poets in Vietnam. A concubine, she became renowned for her poetic skills, writing subtly risqu poems which used double entendre and sexual innuendo as a vehicle for social, religious, and political commentary. "The Unwed Mother" The publication of "Spring Essence" is a major historical and cultural event. It features a "tri-graphic" presentation of English translations alongside both the modern Vietnamese alphabet and the nearly extinct calligraphic "N m" writing system, the hand-drawn calligraphy in which H Xu n Huong originally wrote her poems. It represents the first time that this calligraphy--the carrier of Vietnamese culture for over a thousand years--will be printed using moveable type. From the technology demonstrated in this book scholars worldwide can begin to recover an important part of Vietnam's literary history. Meanwhile, readers of all interests will be fascinated by the poetry of Ho Xuan Huong, and the scholarship of John Balaban. The translator, John Balaban, was twice a National Book Award finalist for his own poetry and is one of the preeminent American authorities on Vietnamese literature. During the war Balaban served as a conscientious objector, working to bring war-injured children better medical care. He later returned to Vietnam to record folk poetry. Like Alan Lomax's pioneering work in American music, Balaban was to first to record Vietnam's oral tradition. This important work led him to the poetry of H Xu n Huong. Ngo Than Nhan, a computational linguist from NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematics, has digitized the ancient "N m" calligraphy. Also available by John Balaban /DIV>
This collection of twelve short stories and one essay by Vietnamese writers reveals the tragic legacy of Agent Orange and raises troubling moral questions about the physical, spiritual, and environmental consequences of war. Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed approximately twenty million gallons of Agent Orange and other chemical defoliants on Vietnam and Laos, exposing combatants and civilians from both sides to the deadly contaminant dioxin. Many of the exposed, and later their children, suffered from ailments including diabetes, cancer, and birth defects. This remarkably diverse collection represents a body of work published after the early 1980s that stirred sympathy and indignation in Vietnam, pressuring the Vietnamese government for support. "Thirteen Harbors" intertwines a woman's love for a dioxin victim with ancient Cham legend and Vietnamese folk wisdom. "A Child, a Man" explores how our fates are bound with those of our neighbors. In "The Goat Horn Bell" and "Grace," families are devastated to find the damage from Agent Orange passed to their newborn children. Eleven of the pieces appear in English for the first time, including an essay by Minh Chuyen, whose journalism helped publicize the Agent Orange victims' plight. The stories in "Family of Fallen Leaves" are harrowing yet transformative in their ability to make us identify with the other.
While serving as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war, John Balaban cared for war-wounded children. The poems which he which he wrote out of that experience are among the finest in American literature and are included here along with three decades of other highly-praised, award-winning poetry.
This collection of twelve short stories and one essay by Vietnamese writers reveals the tragic legacy of Agent Orange and raises troubling moral questions about the physical, spiritual, and environmental consequences of war. Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed approximately twenty million gallons of Agent Orange and other chemical defoliants on Vietnam and Laos, exposing combatants and civilians from both sides to the deadly contaminant dioxin. Many of the exposed, and later their children, suffered from ailments including diabetes, cancer, and birth defects. This remarkably diverse collection represents a body of work published after the early 1980s that stirred sympathy and indignation in Vietnam, pressuring the Vietnamese government for support. "Thirteen Harbors" intertwines a woman's love for a dioxin victim with ancient Cham legend and Vietnamese folk wisdom. "A Child, a Man" explores how our fates are bound with those of our neighbors. In "The Goat Horn Bell" and "Grace," families are devastated to find the damage from Agent Orange passed to their newborn children. Eleven of the pieces appear in English for the first time, including an essay by Minh Chuyen, whose journalism helped publicize the Agent Orange victims' plight. The stories in "Family of Fallen Leaves" are harrowing yet transformative in their ability to make us identify with the other.
Since relations between the U.S. and Vietnam have normalized, many more people are traveling to this exotic country, previously closed to a generation of Western visitors. Vietnam provides one of the first chances for Americans to know the Vietnamese outside the context of war. Vietnamese have been telling stories for thousands of years, in poetry and in song, in Chinese script and then in Vietnamese nom, and more recently, in novels and short stories. These 17 stories, from contemporary Vietnamese writers living in Vietnam and abroad, take the literary traveler to extraordinary places: from the jungle-clad mountain ranges of the North to the mysterious silence of the old capital along the Perfume River. Travel to the raucous mayhem of Saigon where youngsters still circle the downtown in motorcycle promenades and where the reopened bars, caught in a time warp, play old Creedence Clearwater and Carlos Santana songs. Proximity of the spirit world, love of family, exhaustion from war, one's Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist obligations, social protest, and the hunger for a better life - these are some of the concerns to be encountered in these thrilling landscapes. Table of Contents
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