"Reclaiming" Southern Literature

Book "Contribution to Southern Literature".

Readers have access to new discoveries, thereby enriching their knowledge of a literary region, as well as seeing the diversity, richness and interest of the country's literature.

New discoveries

Acknowledging that “Vietnamese literature is a unified literature with common rules and characteristics”, in the article “In search of characteristics of Southern Vietnamese national language literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries”, the two authors Vo Van Nhon and Doan Le Giang pointed out that “local literature also has its own rules and characteristics originating from the social, geographical, economic characteristics… of each locality”.

“Due to the fate of history, Cochinchina soon had contact with Western culture and civilization, even though the contact and exchange were forced and coerced. Cochinchina was also a new land, with people who were liberal and generous, less constrained by literary traditions than the North, so they easily and quickly abandoned the constraints of medieval literary traditions to build a more modern and fresh literature. On that social and cultural basis, Cochinchina's national language literature was one step ahead on the path of modernization and integration with world literature.”

The authors generalized four basic characteristics of Southern Vietnamese national literature in this period: Pioneering on the path of modernization; imbued with patriotism; rich in morality and democratic spirit; outward-looking consciousness, focusing on entertainment function and paying great attention to the masses, especially the common masses.

The book gathers research articles on Southern literature from the 19th century to the present, helping readers access new discoveries, thereby enriching their knowledge of a literary region with its own characteristics.

That is to learn more about “Vietnam’s first modern national language play” - Tuong Cha Minh - printed in 1881 at Tan Dinh Printing House. The article not only analyzes the aspects mentioned in the title, but also raises an issue that needs attention: “There is no document about the author of the play Tuong Cha Minh, but in our opinion, it could be Marie-Antoine Louis Caspar, whose Vietnamese name is Co Loc, a French missionary…”.

Or when discussing the first national language novel of modern Vietnamese prose, it is no longer the story of To Tam by Hoang Ngoc Phach or Teacher Lazaro Phien by Nguyen Trong Quan, but "Who discovered the story of Teacher Lazaro Phien (1887)?".

According to the authors, “in fact, the person who discovered Master Lazaro Phien was Bui Duc Tinh in the work Contributions of Southern Literature - The First Steps of New Journalism, Novels and Poetry printed by Lua Thieng Publishing House in Saigon in 1975. In the work published at a time when the country was in turmoil, about to turn a new page, Bui Duc Tinh introduced Master Lazaro Phien very thoroughly and noted that this was the first work of modern fiction.”

From here, the authors hope to "correct a mistake in literary history when many people mistakenly think that Nguyen Van Trung was the one who discovered this first modern novel in 1987, while Bui Duc Tinh was the one who discovered Teacher Lazaro Phien with a work published 12 years earlier."

Suggestions for research and study

Another issue that the authors want to clarify is the literature of the Southern resistance zone from 1945 to 1954. According to them, “due to the difficult and deprived conditions of the resistance zone during the French resistance, most prose works, especially novels, were not preserved in their entirety… This caused many novels of the Southern resistance zone to exist in collective memory as a kind of legend rather than a product of written literature.”

In the process of studying and researching short stories and novels of this period, authors Nguyen Thi Phuong Thuy and Vo Van Nhon pointed out many characteristics of Southern literature compared to resistance literature of the whole country.

“First of all, it is the extroversion in the way the characters are portrayed. The brutal enemy in Northern stories often appears in a sinister and vicious manner with physical and mental torture, while in Southern stories, it is extremely animalistic, with acts of devouring people alive… Another characteristic of Southern resistance stories is the thrill, adventure, and mystery in the characters’ behavior, which is very suitable for the “taste” of the public here…”.

Compared to contemporary urban literature, the authors believe that “short stories and novels from the Southern war zone have quite clear differences in style… Writers from the resistance zone pursue a simple, straightforward writing style, closer to reality in terms of language, but more one-sided and idealized in terms of character thinking…”.

In this book, the authors also take readers on a journey to learn about the concept and atmosphere of “new age literature”, to more clearly identify a “literary stream” hovering between children and adults, thereby investing in creation and publishing…

The thin but deep “slices” in the book “Contribution to Southern Literature” are noteworthy suggestions in the process of “exploring” a unique and potentially interesting literary region in our country’s literature…

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/khai-khan-van-chuong-phuong-nam-3152221.html