Bringing into literature a mountainous space rich in identity

“Room Without Door” (Writer Association Publishing House, 2024) is the latest collection of short stories by writer Nong Quoc Lap, a native of Trung Khanh (Cao Bang). In this collection of short stories, the author remains faithful to the theme that has positioned him in the stream of minority literature in particular, and contemporary Vietnamese literature in general: Mountainous regions and ethnic minorities.

Báo Quân đội Nhân dân•01/12/2025

Through 25 short stories, Nong Quoc Lap has taken readers to explore a mountainous space that is both beautiful, poetic, peaceful, rich in cultural identity and mysterious. In the first stroke, the mountainous region appears with a spacious, open nature, high blue sky, high mountain ranges that stretch as far as the eye can see with "snow falling all over the grass", with dangerous passes, deep ravines, majestic forests. On that space is the peaceful life of ethnic minorities with familiar farming activities: farming, raising livestock, poultry, digging ponds to raise fish...

Book cover.

Like many other authors writing about the mountainous region, Nong Quoc Lap also mentioned cultural collisions and conflicts, changes in lifestyle in both positive and negative directions of the mountainous space when in contact with the lowlands, but that is not the mainstream trend in his writings.

Nong Quoc Lap's pen aims to portray the most "original", complete, and authentic life of ethnic minorities. In his stories, ethnic minorities appear with good qualities (tolerance, generosity, family love, attachment to nature...) or bad habits (male chauvinism, jealousy, addiction, superstition...), but readers still see there the simplicity and innocence in their thinking and feelings. The second dimension and also the most unique point, the thing that attracts readers to the last pages of this short story collection is the author's descriptions of the mountainous space imbued with spiritual and mystical culture.

Entering this space, we are overwhelmed by the appearance of ferocious beasts such as tiger spirits, dragons, and snake monsters; delighted and curious about the treasures with magical protective functions; excitedly following the footsteps of brave ethnic people searching for treasures of heaven and earth such as gold, blood, stone meat...; fascinated by "amazing hunts" in the forest; terrified and "goosebumps" by the ghostly and magical customs such as spells and oaths; startled by prophetic dreams...

It can be said that Nong Quoc Lap has built an “ecosystem” of mountainous space imbued with magical details, teetering between reality and fantasy, good and evil in his works. With this, he has successfully recreated the “forest road” stories of the 1930s and 1940s with a new, shorter and more modern version.

Although these stories are different in details, characters, narrative... they are all structured by the author based on the concept of heaven, earth, and human unity, and the spirit of all things. Hidden deep behind those thrilling, illusory details is a profound yet unexpectedly simple concept of life: Every action that goes against morality or causes harm to nature must be paid for, and it is a high price. The price to pay can come immediately, like Bang getting into a car accident after touching a tree spirit, leading to the loss of his wife and children ("Rotten Wood"), or later on, like the death of the young lovers Lat-Lim, the children of old Huong ("Treasure").

Cai's belated realization while lying on his sickbed in the short story "Falling into the Trap": "Now Cai believes that all animals living on earth have souls. Cai has caused many evils to wild animals, fed the buffaloes with grass and manure, pulled the plow to produce rice and corn to feed many generations. And now he is paying the price for the evils caused by his own hands" is the message throughout the entire collection of short stories that Nong Quoc Lap wants to send to readers.

With all its achievements in content and art, "Room without a door" was awarded the B prize in 2024 by the Vietnam Association of Literature and Arts of Ethnic Minorities./.

Comment (0)