115th Birthday of Writer Nguyen Tuan: A man who spent his life searching for and creating beauty

On the occasion of the 115th anniversary of his birth (July 10, 1910 - July 10, 2025), readers have the opportunity to return to Vang bong mot thoi , Song Da or the essays imbued with the national soul, to feel more clearly a Nguyen Tuan who is always present in the beauty of language, in the standards of writing and in the passion for beauty to the end. As writer Nguyen Dinh Thi once commented: "Nguyen Tuan is a person who spends his life searching for beauty, for truth".

Nguyen Tuan with Hanoi spring.

Nguyen Tuan was born on July 10, 1910. He came to the writing profession as if he were coming to a journey of the soul, where beauty is the horizon that never stops calling. According to Professor Phong Le, passion and living and dying for the profession - that is the common trait of many people who choose the writing profession, not just Nguyen Tuan. But for Nguyen Tuan, this is truly unique, literary creation must be a noble profession. A language that is very Vietnamese and very Nguyen Tuan, that is the highest goal that Nguyen Tuan has reached, right from his first works to the last page.

Nguyen Tuan chose his own path. He did not choose to write critically or interpretatively, but used his pen to preserve and glorify. In the midst of critical literature, he quietly searched for the beauty that had been and was being lost, cherished cultural values, the personality of talented people and turned them into living art in each page of literature.

The person who preserves the national quintessence in the modern flow

Among them, "Vang bong mot thoi" - the work that made his name shine - is a spiritual legacy, a cultural epic. Old pleasures such as drinking tea, writing poetry, playing lanterns or calligraphy, under his pen, become living rituals that carry the soul of the nation. Nguyen Tuan did not regret the past with tears, he held on to it with language. Hidden in each sentence is a nostalgic but not sad, solemn but not trite look. Nguyen Tuan created a world where beauty is praised as a belief. With a talented pen and a heart that respects heritage, Nguyen Tuan preserved traditional beauty as a way to preserve the quintessence of the nation in the modern flow.

Nguyen Tuan has affirmed his name with the writing style

Nguyen Tuan has affirmed his name with the writing style "Vang bong mot thoi"

Besides Vang bong mot thoi , Nguyen Tuan also has many works about Vietnamese landscapes, the flavor of the country, the soul of the nation, such as: Pho, Cay Ha Noi, Com, Gio lua, To hoa, Tinh rung... Beautiful, unique and talented literary works that, besides Nguyen Tuan, it would be difficult for any other writer to write.

"The king of essays"

In the introduction of Nguyen Tuan as the person who "reached the beauty and the truth", Professor Phong Le emphasized: Appearing on the literary scene in the late 30s and early 40s of the 20th century, Nguyen Tuan immediately affirmed his name in a literary work that almost captured and crystallized all the quintessence that created the perfection and perfection of a writing style: Echoes of a Time". With a very impressive start as Echoes of a Time , Nguyen Tuan came to the August Revolution with a dedication to living with the times, with contemporary life, right before his eyes.

If in the previous period, Nguyen Tuan was passionate about portraying the beauty in tradition, then after the August Revolution, he chose to put aside his amateur ego and blend into the community's ego. From a Nguyen Tuan who used to write as a way to affirm his ego in the midst of a chaotic time, he took a new path - living and writing with the nation, letting his personal talent shine in the great flow of the revolution and the people's lives. Works such as The Ferryman on the Da River, Love of the Campaign, Happy Road, Hanoi, We Fight the Americans Well... are milestones that show a Nguyen Tuan who is still talented, but more profound, more attached, and closer to the people than ever.

Among them, the essay The Ferryman of the Da River is a typical example of the sublimation of Nguyen Tuan's style in the new period. The Da River under his pen is not only a geographical entity, but also becomes a living character. Sometimes it "resents", "begs", sometimes it "provokes", "mocks", and suddenly "roars like the sound of a thousand wild buffaloes raging in the midst of a bamboo forest, a fire-filled bamboo forest". But sometimes, it "flows like a lyrical strand of hair, the tips and roots of the hair hidden in the clouds of the Northwest". Rarely is there a writer who can convey such deep nuances and emotions into rivers, rocks and mountains...

For Nguyen Tuan, essays are not just a genre. They are his territory, where he puts his personal ego on par with national emotions, where all limits can be overcome with imagination and culture. People call him “the king of essays” not because of quantity, but because of quality: he turns improvisation into art, turns the flow of emotions into tight structures, turns profound knowledge into pages of writing that can move people’s hearts.

Nguyen Tuan (middle) with Bui Xuan Phai and Van Cao.

"Each word has its own mark"

During his lifetime, Nguyen Tuan was always deeply aware of his responsibility and deep love for everything related to "our language" - the place where the soul of national culture crystallizes.

His vocabulary is both rich and refined, both classical and modern, full of emotion but also very disciplined. A Nguyen Tuan sentence can be as long as a piece of music, but the rhythm is precise and the tempo is clear.

In his eyes, “every word seems to have its own mark”. He can describe the color of Co To sea by referring to the “color of Kim Trong’s shirt” during Thanh Minh festival - a bold yet profound association, both evocative and soulful.

Researchers praise the “party” of words in Nguyen Tuan’s writings and mention the compilation of a Nguyen Tuan language dictionary – with “Phai streets”, “island districts”… that he contributed to the common vocabulary of the Vietnamese language. People understand that the whole shimmering sky of language is the quintessence of a life of experience, passionately collecting every bit of gold of the mother tongue…

Many linguists later still mention Nguyen Tuan as a person who enriched the Vietnamese vocabulary with his own seriousness and creativity.

Nearly half a century of writing is nearly half a century of Nguyen Tuan living as an artist who keeps the fire burning. It is not easy to have a writer whose works and life exude such artistic dedication. He once said: "If you want to write like flowers, you must be as diligent as a bee making honey." His whole life was the diligence of a bee wandering in the flower garden of words, quietly sucking the beauty to distill it into sweet honey for literature.

Nguyen Tuan passed away in 1987, but his mark is still present in every page of his books and every literature lecture, as a reminder that beauty, if cherished to the fullest, will always have a worthy place in the human soul.

Returning to Nguyen Tuan is returning to a soul that has spent its life wandering in search of beauty, not flashy beauty, but the profound beauty in culture, in language, in the way of life and writing. It is this serious talent that has created a legacy that each generation, when rereading, finds themselves needing to live more slowly, more deeply and more subtly.

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Source: https://baolaocai.vn/115-nam-ngay-sinh-nha-van-nguyen-tuan-nguoi-suot-doi-di-tim-va-sang-tao-cai-dep-post648303.html