Ever since it exploded into Vietnam's cultural life two centuries ago, The Song of Kieu has been one of that nation's most beloved and defining central myths. It recounts the tragic fate of the beautiful singer and poet Kieu, who agrees to marry to save her family from debt but is tricked into working in a brothel. Over the course of a swift-moving story involving kidnap, war, jealous wives and rebel heroes, she will become a queen, wife, nun, slave, victim and avenger, surviving through the strength of her words and her wits alone. Translated with an introduction by Timothy Allen

Since its publication in the early nineteenth century, this long narrative poem has stood unchallenged as the supreme masterpiece of Vietnamese literature. Thông’s new and absorbingly readable translation (on pages facing the Vietnamese text) is illuminated by notes that give comparative passages from the Chinese novel on which the poem was based, details on Chinese allusions, and literal translations with background information explaining Vietnamese proverbs and folk sayings.

It's always been the same: good fortune seldom came the way of those endowed, they say, with genius and a dainty face. What tragedies take place within each circling space of years! 'Rich in good looks' appears to mean poor luck and tears of woe; which may sound strange, I know, but is not really so, I swear, since Heaven everywhere seems jealous of the fair of face. The tale of Kieu, a talented young girl, was written in verse in Vietnamese by Nguyen Du, who lived in Vietnam from 1765 to 1820. Although the story is set in China, it was the greatest work of literature until then to be written in the Vietnamese language, and many would say it is still unrivalled. It tells the story of Kieu, a beautiful girl, who falls in love with Kim, a handsome student, and they become engaged. But while Kim is away, Kieu's father is arrested on a false charge, and Kieu follows the Confucian teaching that duty to one's parents overrides all other duties, and gives herself to be sold as a bride to a stranger. Her life continues with terrible suffering alternating with periods of relative happiness, but always she dreams of Kim. But eventually they are reunited and there is a happy ending. Michael Counsell lived as a civilian in Vietnam for almost four years during the Vietnam War. He read the tale of Kieu, and was deeply moved by the human drama and the descriptions of nature. It seemed to symbolise the suffering which the Vietnamese people, and especially Vietnamese women, endured during the twentieth century. Among the many misunderstandings of the Vietnamese people by the English-speaking world in our days, he says, we must include the failure to understand that they are a nation of poets and heirs to a great culture. So to make this story more widely known, he started to translate the poem into English. This was probably the first and may still be the only translation made by a native speaker of English directly from the Vietnamese into English verse using the same scansion and rhyme-scheme as the original. Michael visited Hanoi in 1994, and was again struck by the beauty of the scenery and the friendliness of the people. His translation of Kieu was published in a bilingual edition, with beautiful illustrations, by the Thé Gioi Publishers. But it has proved difficult to buy that edition outside Vietnam, so in order that many more people should be able to enjoy it, the English text only is now published by Createspace, a branch of amazon, and also aas an e-book on Kindle. Michael Counsell is now living in Birmingham in England. His dream is that eventually, like Edward Fitzgerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, his translation of Kieu may prove as popular among English-speakers as with those who can read the original. Janet Marshall writes: Kieu is not a love story in the romantic, light-hearted sense. But it expresses not only the profound and lasting love between Kieu and Kim, but also their patience and endurance through years of cruel, undeserved trials. Yet even through the darkest parts of the poem, the reader has hope of the triumph of goodness over evil, and that Kuan-Yin will eventually bring about a happy ending. All the characters are delicately drawn, and bring a Far Eastern culture, with its modes and manners, vividly to life. So many stories from far-away lands lose much of their fascination and genuine warmth and believability in translation. It is not so in this instance. Michael Counsell, with a true understanding for, and sympathy with the Vietnamese traditions, has brought before the English reader a literary experience of extraordinary beauty.

Kim-Van-Kieu, for centuries, has been regarded by the Vietnamese as the most beautiful jewel in painting the sentimental tenderness of the human soul. Edited in the early 1813's, this masterpiece of 3250 verses was structured in a particular form of prosody that has become since then a cherished anthem of Vietnamese poetry. The story concerns a maiden endowed with mental and bodily graces; an elite who, placed between love and filial devotion, deliberately chose the harder way: she sold herself to save her father, a victim of an unjust calamity. And from that day on, she passed from one misfortune to another until she sank into the most abject depravity. But, like the lotus, after a long chain of stormy winds, she succeeded in elevating herself and preserving the pure perfume of her original soul. Homesickness seemed to carry away Her soul toward the forlorn clouds of Tsin. "My poor old parents! Both now must be quite old! "Since my departure, has their grievance "Subsided any as time went by? "So fast, more than ten years out of sight! "If they still live, maybe their skin "Has been wrinkled, and their hair has turned gray "Like frost-covered as it had never been! "And the old love! Regretful, I may say!" Like the lotus torn off from its stem, Though their former binding had been broken, The feelings Kieu had conceived for Kim Seemed to still have a slight venation. Kim-Van-Kieu 1963 Edition, English translation by Professor Le-Xuan-Thuy, had given the Western readers a chance to taste the delights of a new style of poem-in-prose version of Vietnamese poetry into English. Forty six years later came into light a fresher gem with a more inspired form, "The Soul of Poetry inside Kim-Van-Kieu", a vibrant versification of Kim-Van-Kieu by Professor Le Xuan Thuy himself, well known online as international poet Hall-of-Fame Thuy Lexuan, ASO.

Hong Gildong, a brilliant but illegitimate son of a noble government minister, cannot advance in society and embarks on a series of adventures, joining a band of outlaws, vanquishing assassins and monsters, and founding his own kingdom.

**Shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year** The Penguin Classics Book is a reader's companion to the largest library of classic literature in the world. Spanning 4,000 years from the legends of Ancient Mesopotamia to the poetry of the First World War, with Greek tragedies, Icelandic sagas, Japanese epics and much more in between, it encompasses 500 authors and 1,200 books, bringing these to life with lively descriptions, literary connections and beautiful cover designs.

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