Moscow State University could teach Vietnam novel

Writer Nguyen Nhat Anh signs books for his fans

Photo: Tuoi Tre

A Russian professor has proposed the Vietnamese novel “Cô gái đến từ hôm qua” (The girl comes from yesterday) be included in official curricula at the Moscow State University.

Dr. Maxim Syunnerberg, of the Vietnamese faculty belonging to the Moscow State University, wants his faculty to teach the novel written by the famous 46-year-old Vietnamese writer Nguyen Nhat Anh.

Syunnerberg is one author of the Russian-Vietnamese dictionary published in 2008.
The 10 chapters of the original novel are suggested to be arranged into 16 chapters to fit the 16-week study schedule.

In related news, last month, Anh officially allowed Thailand-based Nanmee Books publishing house to translate his short story "Give Me a Ticket Back to Childhood" into a Thailand version.

The book last year won the Southeast Asian Writers Awards 2010 in Thailand.

It is expected to be released in Thailand in early August to mark the 35th anniversary of the two countries’ diplomatic relations.

Anh is a Vietnamese author well-known for his engaging stories for both teenagers and adults. He also works as a teacher, a poet and a reporter.

His works are enormous, including approximately 24 short stories, two giant novel series and poetry collections.

He is regarded as one of the most successful writers for teenagers.

His most well-known series "Kinh Van Hoa" (Kaleidoscope) which contains 45 volumes about three teenagers and the stories around their friendship and school life, has recently been adapted into four drama series of the same name.

In 1995, he was voted the most popular writer in the last 20 years (1975-1995) and the most talented individual through a poll held by Tuoi Tre newspaper.

Related Articles

• Banks to face stricter rule on real estate loans
• Tiger Woods and wife divorce after sex scandal
• Vietnam Air accepts web check-in for int’l flights
• Australia wants stronger cooperation to vocational education
• Timeout with a good book

Culture Vulture

Director Tran Anh Hung's latest film Norwegian Wood recently premiered at Ha Noi's Megastar Cineplex, with the film to open in cinemas nationally tomorrow. Hung, an overseas Vietnamese who lives in France, spoke about the film adapted from the popular novel by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.

How have you tried to ensure fans of the novel are not disappointed when they watch your movie?

I don't care about it. I was just interested in making a good movie. If the movie doesn't match what audiences' imagined, that's their affair, not mine. This is the first time I've made a movie from a well-known novel. I not only tried to tell the story in images, but I wanted to express my thoughts and feelings when I read the novel. I choose a way to go straight to the heart of the matter, without beginning with a character's recollection as usual.

What's more, the novel did not address the relationship between past and present or cause and effect. If I made the movie following the novel's structure, I would have had to add more details than are present. But there's already a lot of information in the original.

I began to shoot the movie in winter and delayed it in five months waiting for summer. Japanese actors are great, and the languages barrier was not a problem. We could understand each other well because of the common language of cinema.

Director Jean-Jacques Annaud's 1991 film The Lover, based on the book by Marguerite Duras, ignited a constroversy because of the many sex scenes in the film. There are also a lot of sex scenes in Norwegian Wood. But the sexuality in the novel is handled in a very pure way. How did you convey that in making this film?

The director needs to have an exact eye. While sex scenes attract interest, they need to be there for good reason. In the movie, when the protagonist has sex, it is significant and psychologically changing. So I made these scenes special. I focused on the expression on the actors' faces. When watching the movie, audiences will feel it.

Sex in a movie should relate to the theme of the movie. What is the theme of Norwegian Wood? It is that a main female character cannot make love and it leads to her death. It makes her guilty because she thought that her boyfriend's death was due to this reason. Murakami seems to overaccentuate sexuality. Sexuality is the salvation of his characters.

Did you have any trouble with Murakami, who is known to be very tough?

We didn't have any trouble with Haruki Murakami. He knows the cinema. The writer cannot intervene in the director's work. We discussed a lot and it was very good for me. It helped me to write the script. He was satisfied when he watched the movie. I think I'm lucky. Before I reached agreement with Murakami, he didn't want anybody to make a movie from his novel.

The novel focuses on characters' psychological states more than on situations. How do you sustain the interest of audiences in the movie?

The novel reminds me of my youth, with a lot of love and emotion and everything I experienced. It brings me to a special sadness about life and loss which people possible may not have had a chance to see. It is the reason why I made the movie. I believe that it will touch the hearts of audiences. If audiences reach the end of the movie and have remembered their own emotions of first love or fear of loss, I will have been successful.

The movie is being screened in Japan and I know that there have been many responses to the film in Japanese. I've been too busy to ask assistants to translate them for me. I will know in a few weeks.

I cannot guess the responses of Vietnamese audiences. I will have to wait for the answer. Obviously, I hope they will be moved after the come out of the theatre. — VNS

Related Articles

• Top ten events in culture, sports and tourism in 2010
• USDA forecasts strong corn import from Vietnam
• North should ensure sustainable growth
• Australia wants stronger cooperation to vocational education
• Production, trade results up in 2010

Home at center of steamy novel now a tourist site

A visitor is seen leaving the house of Huynh Thuy Le, the leading character in the French novel and movie "L'Amant"(The Lover), written by Marguerite Duras, in the town of Sadec, Vietnam's southern province of Dong Thap.

Photo: AFP

For years, the home of the main male character in French writer Marguerite Duras' steamy novel "The Lover" was closed to the public in Vietnam.

Now it is recognized as a national historic site, and is open to tourists.

The purportedly autobiographical novel, published in 1984, tells the story of a teenage French girl's affair with her wealthy Chinese lover in colonial Indochina.

The lover's family home was in the Mekong Delta town of Sadec, according to the best-selling novel, which was translated into numerous languages including Vietnamese.

A 1992 film version, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Tony Leung, proved more popular than the novel in Vietnam, even though the more erotic scenes were censored.

In Sadec, the walls of the house proudly display photos from the film, as well as of the woman who in real life ultimately became the wife of the man known as the lover, Huynh Thuy Le.

Their children are also pictured. A tour guide says the children went to live in France and the United States shortly before the Vietnam War ended.

With the communist victory and Vietnam's reunification in 1975, the house became a police station, which it remained at the time of filming "The Lover".

It could not be featured in the movie, and photographs were forbidden.

Twenty years after Vietnam began its "Doi Moi" policy of opening up to the world and embracing a market economy in 1986, the home was named a "cultural vestige".

Its special status was further enshrined this year when authorities declared it a national historic site. Now, tourists are even allowed to sleep in the house.

The original facade was a mixture of Chinese and French styles, a single-storey home with outbuildings and spacious grounds. Much of that land has now been eaten up by housing in the town southwest of Ho Chi Minh City, in Dong Thap province.

But the main building remains, and includes a large wooden altar which honored the family's Chinese ancestors, just inside the entrance.

Another feature is a vast low table encrusted with mother-of-pearl and tiles from France.

Le Hong Sam, a Duras translator, welcomed classification of the home as a historic site, calling it a recognition of the author.

But Duras herself was not able to enter before she left Vietnam forever in 1932. Le Thi Thanh Tuyen, a guide at the attraction, says the lover's father did not approve of Duras' presence.

"Marguerite Duras never came" to the house, she says.

Related Articles

• Cashew traders yet to embrace trading center system
• Food promotions at Grand and First hotels
• OV in France to help boost Vietnam’s tourism
• HCMC to relay grand sale program to November
• Poor rural children blaze education trail