Writer Nguyen Ngoc at the meeting.

Wars have blurred the faces of people on either side of the frontlines. However, literature and cultural exchanges have helped unveil people’s real faces and humanity.

This statement was made by literature researcher, Nguyen Ngoc, at the Vietnam-America Literature Seminar held in Hanoi by the Hanoi Cultural University and William Joiner Centre of Massachusetts University from May 28th to June 3rd. 

Through their speeches, Vietnamese and American poets and scholars recalled what they had experienced during the war and hoped for a future of sympathy and sharing between the two countries.

Participants at the seminar were those who had once exchanged fire with each other during the war.

Mr. Tran Van Thuy, a documentary film director recalled his story along with the American veteran, Wayne Karlin, who is now a writer and scholar at the University of Southern Maryland.

With a camera, Thuy used to crouch under clumps of vegitation, and filmed as much of what he could of the frontline during the fierce fighting while Karlin sat on a helicopter and shot down on the ground.

Tran Van Thuy once asked Karlin what he saw from the helicopter when he was shooting. The American writer admitted that actually he could not see much except the moving clumps of shrubbery but he kept on shooting anyway.

Commenting on the atrocities of war, researcher Nguyen Ngoc, pointed out that wars turned a person into someone who did not wear his real face.  That is why he could not recognize another person’s real face. This is why such exchanges have become indispensable for those who had been on opposite sides of the frontlines in order to heal the wounds in their minds and hearts and to find their true identity.

Many American writers agreed that it’s necessary to recall the past to overcome it. They confided that the war created a misunderstanding among the people of America and Vietnam. This is a time for them to get to know each other through literature and culture.

Addressing the seminar, many participants recommended ways to bring Vietnamese literature to the US and vice versa.

In fact, over the past decades, great efforts have been made to introduce some works by Vietnamese writers such as Le Luu, Nguyen Quang Sang, Lam Thi My Da to American readers through translated versions. Yet, the number remains modest.

For his part, writer Nguyen Quang Sang said he was surprised to see that there is a Chinese publishing house in France. This was the way they introduced China’s classical masterpieces and outstanding contemporary works to French readers. Meanwhile, the overseas Vietnamese had only a few newspapers, not enough to help the world understand Vietnam.

Even veteran American writers and poets who had been to Vietnam like Fred Marchant and Kevin Bowen admitted that they knew nothing about Vietnam, and could not say whether they had misunderstood the country during the war.

Marchant confessed that all he could remember about Vietnam were geographical names such as Cu Chi, Tay Ninh, Ba Den mountain but what he saw in this visit to Vietnam was completely different.

Poet Martha Collins said she understood more about Vietnam through poems by Nguyen Quang Thieu and Lam Thi My Da. This has inspired her to study Vietnamese, so that she could understand and translate more Vietnamese poems into English.

Source: Vnexpress

Translated by Mai Huong