On July 12, at the Vietnam Writers Association Publishing House (Hanoi), the book launch ceremony of "Three Guyanese Prison Escapees" by engineer Do Thai Binh took place.
The book is over 500 pages thick, telling the story of three patriots Nguyen Quang Dieu, Ly Lieu and Do Van Phong since they were sentenced to hard labor by the French colonial court, exiled to a prison in Guyane (a French overseas territory in South America), but still kept the will to live and then began the journey to escape and return to their homeland.
The book is also special in its appendix - a detailed list of Vietnamese prisoners who were exiled to Guyane, fully annotated with their full names, prison numbers, year of sentencing, name of the ship escorting them, and the prison camps where they were held. This is an invaluable source of information for historians and readers interested in the history of the early 20th century.
Engineer Do Thai Binh is a maritime researcher who has written and translated many books and works on maritime and ships. He is the grandson of Confucian scholar Do Van Phong, one of the three patriotic activists mentioned above and also the founder of the famous Mai Linh Publishing House brand.
To write the book, engineer Do Thai Binh spent decades researching, collecting documents and archives at archives centers in Vietnam, the Overseas Archives (ANOM) in France and around the world . He went to Guyane himself to find historical traces of his grandfather when he was imprisoned with other patriots after the September 5, 1913 sentence by the French colonialists and their thrilling escape.
Through the book, the author has portrayed the patriots, how they nurtured their ideals and planned to return to their homeland halfway around the world. Then, when the opportunity came, they crossed the Maroni River of Guyane to the neighboring country of Surinam and then continued to move to the island of Trinidad, and from there, each person took their own way to return to Vietnam on ships departing from North America.
Engineer Do Thai Binh shared: “I wanted to write this book to commemorate the patriots who lived and sacrificed in Guyane and to show gratitude to those who helped the group of prisoners, including my grandfather, escape successfully. The fate of each person is closely tied to the collective and to history.”
At the book launch, historian Duong Trung Quoc said that “The Three Escapees from Guyane Prison” is a monumental study with a large amount of knowledge. He commented that there have been studies on the lives of patriotic scholars in the early 20th century, but there are still many gaps. “The book has revealed some unknown mysteries about human destiny and the contributions of patriotic scholars at that time,” said historian Duong Trung Quoc.
Prof. Dr. Nguyen Chi Ben, former Director of the Vietnam National Institute of Culture and Arts, assessed that the book does not stop at mere documentary value. According to him, the documents published by engineer Do Thai Binh have rare depth and coverage, distilled from two main sources: fieldwork and access to books, creating a solid foundation for reconstructing the historical picture.
Source: https://cand.com.vn/Chuyen-dong-van-hoa/hanh-trinh-vuot-nua-vong-trai-dat-tro-ve-que-huong-cua-3-chi-si-yeu-nuoc-qua-cam-i774568/
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