A new way of literary creation in Vietnam

The writer Vinh Quyen had over ten works of literature published, most of which were novels and short stories. Of course all of these were written in his native language, Vietnamese. It was not until 2008 that he quietly began to write his first work in English, Debris of Debris. Vinh Quyen was a graduate of the Faculty of Sino-Nom, but had not mastered the English language. For this reason, before he started to write the first lines, he attended on-line English translation courses and pored over a dozen English novels… All of this was done in secrecy. The person he chose to disclose his secret to was me!

Vinh Quyen was introducing his writing at the College of Saint Benedict, MN, 2009. Photo by Tran Thanh Lieng

One late Autumn afternoon in 2008, Vinh Quyen walked by while I was having some beer at a sidewalk restaurant. I waved to him; he threw himself into a seat. After some glasses of beer, he said he had been looking for me and wanted my help. I asked him what the deal was. He said he was writing a novel in English, and he was searching for someone ‘well-trained’ in the language to correct his prose. He added that there were a lot of people who had a very good command of English, but in addition to having real proficiency and literary sensibility, the person must also have an understanding of the historical background of the novel.
I accepted because I both respected him and loved literature. However I was really thinking about it as just something fun to talk about while drinking. Then, the next morning when I checked my email, I was astounded to find a file named ‘Debris’ that was 97 pages long! Even more surprising was that the author said that the document he sent was only one third of his manuscript. To tell the truth, when I first looked at that forest of English words I was panic-stricken, and felt regret for having promised my help. To make the things worse, there were a lot of grammatical errors in his manuscript. However, that feeling of being overwhelmed was gradually replaced by inspiration. Despite the errors and troubles in expressing ideas, which are natural in the work of a self-taught man, Vinh Quyen’s pages also revealed the sensibilities of an avid reader of English language literature. But it was his story that especially attracted me, and that might serve as an explanation as to why I spent more than a year trying to perfect the more than 250 pages of text that was Debris of Debris.

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As the title suggests, the characters of the novel had the fate of debris. Debris made up the historical setting, the society, the family. This debris is even internal to each individual.

The novel opens on the day the Vietnam War came to an end. The life of peace that came after 1975, however, itself contained countless consequences left over by more than 20 years of war, particularly for the city-dwellers in the South of Vietnam.


Individuals like Kha, for example, who was a young teacher of literature. He was born in a feudal family. None of his family members joined the resistance. Such a personal and family history was more than enough to create many difficulties for him under the new regime: he was forced to relocate to a rural area; a place of challenge; a place for the re-education of the petit bourgeoisie. And so the wedding between him and My Thuong, who turned out to be the daughter of a revolutionary martyr, was annulled. Marriage with a person like Kha might bring present obstacles to the advancement of her career...

Or like Phuc, Kha’s fellow teacher, who came from a traditionally anti-communist family. He secretly took part in the counter-revolutionary organization. After being discovered and imprisoned, he pretended to be insane for years. His act was so flawless that even his wife and children believed that he had truly lost his mind. Eventually he was moved to a mental ward, where he was able to contact friends and arrange for him and his family to flee the country. Unfortunately, his boat was attacked by pirates, and he was killed while he tried to protect his wife from being dragged away and raped…

Like Thuy, Phuc’s wife, who suffered from maltreatment and abuse from the government and society because of the activities of a husband whom she respected but had no love for. Meanwhile, finding herself in a hopeless love with Kha, Thuy seems to have no way out...

Like Son, a son of a Saigon Army Colonel, who was persuaded by friends to take part in the patriotic students’ movement. Later he was arrested, put in jail and shipped to Con Dao Prison. In the Spring of 1975 Son returned home, only to find that all his family had left for the United States. Despite his participation in the movement, the new government refused to offer him any work because he could not provide definitive proof to their ever-looming question: Might he have been serving in his patriotic activities as a plant for the CIA?

Like Phan, a medical student, who joined the city patriotic students’ movement. After being hunted down and injured by the Saigon Police, Lai, a prostitute, provided him with protection and looked after his wounds. The time the two spent together brought with it a pleasant spring, and love. Afterwards, Phan disappeared into the jungle to become a liberation soldier. On the day of victory, just as he’d promised himself, Phan returned to marry Lai. But the idea of such a “romantic” marriage was rejected by society. In order to set her husband free, Lai left without a word. After many years of trying, and failing, to find her, Phan happened to meet her by chance one day, working as a prostitute...

Like Binh, who was a member of one of the student groups for the resistance. On the day of victory he decided to stay in the jungle because he believed he lover would reject him because of his face, which had been burnt by a napalm bomb...

Like Mr. Hoanh, the commander of students and special forces in the city. Before he went to the North for training in preparation for The Liberation of the South Campaign, he encouraged his young wife to approach the plain-clothes police officer in order to get information for that would help the resistance. During a moment of depravity and weakness, she had conceived a child with the police officer. She felt too guilty to go and see her husband on the day of peace...

Like Quang, like Long, like Binh. Like Man...

And the Americans were no exception. Like Thomas, a military reporter, who spent enough time working in the battlefields of Vietnam to get to know a lovely interpreter named Hien. During the year in which they did not see each other, Thomas was taken as a prisoner of war and moved to the jungle. Ironically, it was Hien who worked as the interpreter for Thomas’ interrogations. One night, taking advantage of an American helicopter raid over the camp, he tried to make an escape. It was also Hien who arrested him, but she offered him a chance to get away. After the war, Thomas became a well-known veteran writer. He returned to Vietnam to look for Hien, but nobody had any memory of such a girl...

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These are people who never surrendered to their plights, or even to their destinies as ‘debris’. They each had their own way of adapting to the new economic and political atmosphere during the first ten years of peace. This recovery process was especially hard for intellectuals in the South, who were involved in the former regime, or did not participate in the revolution before 1975. In the space of just one night they lost all that they had possessed in the old society, and commenced a new life under a new regime. In their own country, in their own families, they had to integrate into a new system of politics, a new economy and a new culture and language... But something else came along with these changes. They gradually had to find a way to heal themselves of old wounds, find a place in the new society and find their own happiness.

Like Kha, who became a writer; like Binh, who went into forestry, although he died at a young age from exposure to Agent Orange; like Thuy, who eventually found her place living with Kha...

Not all of these individuals, in their search for human dignity and love, found what they were seeking...

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Being from the same generation as the characters in Debris of Debris, reading it brought back an entire period of my own life - a part which before was just a constant memory. This is what prompted me on to the last line of Vinh Quyen’s work.

Another inspiration was the fact that, at least I felt, the work represented a new phenomenon in Vietnamese literature: writing works in English, sharing ideas directly with the outside world.

At the end of 2009, with the help of Edward O’Connell, our American friend, Vinh Quyen and I went to the US to introduce his writing at the College of Saint Benedict, MN. This College published the novel Debris of Debris for the in-house use, with a limited number of copies.

Presently, Vinh Quyen is completing the manuscript, and looking for a publishing house that would be able to bring his first English work into the homes of readers throughout the world.