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Hồ Anh Thái

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Hồ Anh Thái, one of the best known contemporary novelists in Vietnam, is regarded as a literary phenomenon of the post-war generation.

Biography

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Ho Anh Thai was born in 1960 in Hanoi. He graduated from Hanoi University of Diplomacy in 1983. After graduation, he worked as a diplomat abroad, especially in India, Iran and Indonesia. Fluent in several foreign languages, he earned a Ph.D. in Oriental Studies. He is also an Indologist and a visiting professor in the University of Washington and foreign universities.

Ho Anh Thai was the elected president of Hanoi Writers’ Association from 2000 to 2010. Also, he was appointed the Vietnam Deputy Ambassador to Iran from 2011-2015, and Indonesia from 2015-2018.

Literary career

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Ho Anh Thai first became known as a teenage author with the publication of his first stories. His works centered on the lives and adventures of young people and students, highlighting their desire to discover the world. Some of his works of this period are the novels Men and Vehicle Run in the Moonlight (1986), The Women on the Island (1986), Behind the Red Mist (1989) and the short story collections The Goat Meat Special (1988), Fragment of a Man (1991), etc.

Early in the 1990s, he published a series of humorous stories about the six years he has spent in India: The Man Who Stood on One Leg, The Indian, A Sigh through the Laburnums, The Barter, etc.

From the 2000s, his published books became more experimental and also considered controversial: the novels The Apocalypse Hotel (2002), Ten and One Nights (2006), RHT is Rat Hunt Team (2011), Erased by the Wind (2012), His Children are Scattered on the Road (2014), Burning Van Gogh (2018), Five Letters of Credence (2019) etc. and short stories collections The Narration of 265 Days (2001), Four Paths to the Fun House (2004), Man is Here and the Sky is There (2013) etc.

Ho Anh Thai came back to the theme of India with the novel The Buddha, Savitri and I, published in 2007. This is the first Vietnamese novel which contemporizes the Buddha through a plot and simple style set in a multi-layered structure which effectively broadens his use of time and space. In 2022 he published another novel about ancient India, The Buddha, the Robber Queen and the Spy.

His fiction has been published abroad, translated into over ten languages, including English, French, Korean, Swedish etc.

Selected works

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  • Người đàn bà trên đảo (The Women on the Island, 1988)[1]
  • Mai phục trong đêm hè (Ambush in the Summer Nights, 1989)
  • Trong sương hồng hiện ra (Behind the Red Mist, 1990)[2]

Awards

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  • Short story prize 1983-1984 of Van Nghe (Literature and Arts) newspaper for The Boy Who Waits at the Bus-stop.
  • Best novel award (5-year award, 1986–1990) of the Vietnam Writers’ Association and the Vietnam Trade Union for Men and Vehicle Run in the Moonlight.
  • Literature award 1995 of the Union of Literature and Art Associations for The Man Who Stood on One Leg.
  • Annual prize 2002 of the Vietnam Writers’ Association for The Narration in 265 Days (refused by author).
  • Annual Prize 2012 for the Best Novel of Ha Noi Writers' Association for RHT is Rat Hunt Team.
  • Book Prize 2015 of Vietnam Publishers' Association for the novel His Children are Scattered on the Road.
  • Book Prize 2016 of IRED and Phan Chau Trinh Culture Foundation for the novel Apocalypse Hotel.

References

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  1. ^ "Raising the Cause of the Individual in the New Vietnam". Los Angeles Times. 2001-09-18. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  2. ^ "Behind the Red Mist". archive.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
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Ho Anh Thai:

Behind the Red Mist:

The Women on the Island:

Apocalypse Hotel:

Some short stories:

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