"Bitter Sip Down the Mountain" has attracted attention recently when literature about mountainous areas and ethnic minorities is rarely exploited (Photo: Hoai Sa).
Ngựm bầu tương sơn is a collection of short stories published by Kim Đồng Publishing House at the end of the year. The book is not only about the difficult fate of the people in the northern mountainous region, but also a vivid image of the culture of ethnic minorities.
The work has attracted attention recently when literature about mountainous areas and ethnic minorities has been rarely exploited. Each story is a bitter reality film, describing the challenging life but also full of love and sacrifice of people hidden in the high mountains.
The author sets the stories in the villages of the Hmong, Dao, or Tay people. The plots carry modern social issues like those in other places, but have their own mountainous colors such as stories of border crossing, drug trafficking, destruction of the sacred forest of the village due to corruption, and especially stories of fighting against the tyrants.
Seng in "The Journey of the Return" is a special character: A Hmong man leads his family to leave the mountains to change their lives. His journey becomes a difficult and tragic adventure, causing him to lose his wife and children along the way.
"Towards the Light" is a rare story in the book that has a seemingly positive, but bitter ending, about a man who traffics women in the border region, suddenly realizing that his lover is more valuable than his female victims. The endings in the 10 stories are often ambiguous, somewhat bitter, making readers ponder.
In "Bitter Sip Down the Mountain", the author not only tells a story but also recreates a part of the culture of the mountainous region (Photo: Hoai Sa).
The author not only tells the story but also recreates a part of the culture of the mountainous region through every small detail. The Dao wedding in "In the Mirror" is recreated through the main character's resistance, when she destroys the custom of walking through the thatched house at that wedding.
In the story "The Red Thread", the custom of adoption is symbolized by the red thread that the father wears for many years, only to throw it away when the two have a conflict. Folklore is part of the character's actions.
The structure of the stories is tight and has few unnecessary elements, making the reader quickly follow the fates of the people. The language of the collection is simple and restrained, avoiding excessive display of the mountainous region but not following the overly simple tone that people often mistakenly associate with the mountainous people. Somewhere there is also a coldness in the words like Nguyen Huy Thiep.
With Ngựm ửi Ngàn , Hoài Sa has brought readers back to the culture and life of ethnic minorities in the mountains. Hoài Sa once wrote about the mountains in the memoir Love Story of the Mountains - Across Hoàng Su Phi .
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