Writer and journalist Nguyen Thi Van Anh and her compassionate writings

The newly released work - Collection of Short Stories and Memoirs - the "brainchild" welcoming the spring of Giap Thin 2024 is the distillation of a life full of experiences. She has brought into literature both intelligence, passion and social responsibility with the concept: "A literary work is like a green tree that blooms beautifully when it takes root deep in good soil, that is the vivid reality we are living in".

The essence is distilled from years of hard work and writing.

That is the opinion of poet Nguyen Viet Chien - Head of the Creative Committee of the Hanoi Writers Association about the works of journalist and writer Nguyen Thi Van Anh. Reviewing the author's career journey, he commented that Nguyen Thi Van Anh is a writer who became famous very early in the 70s of the last century as a journalist, writer, and a prestigious social activist in both the Central and Hanoi . Up to now, she has published 15 works, including: short stories, novels, memoirs and film scripts.

“It can be said that her short stories, novels and literary essays are the essence distilled from years of hard work and writing throughout her many years of working at newspapers. Journalist Nguyen Thi Van Anh's career as a journalist has many marks in her role as Editor-in-Chief of 3 newspapers (Children's Newspaper, Nightingale, Journalist & Public Opinion), Deputy Editor-in-Chief of 2 newspapers, and has participated in the Executive Committee of the Central Youth Union and the Vietnam Journalists Association .

The life of a journalist has probably provided writer Nguyen Thi Van Anh with a wealth of life experiences that would be difficult to obtain without the experience of journalism. Of course, the important thing is how to bring literature into journalism and bring journalistic life into literature, which requires the talent of the writer. I think that, from the perspective of a female journalistic leader, Nguyen Thi Van Anh is a special case when she has conveyed the entire journalistic life, real people, real events, real social incidents... through the journalistic journey to bring into literature..." - poet Nguyen Viet Chien commented.

It can be said that the special life experiences in the journey of journalism have helped writer Nguyen Thi Van Anh have a unique literary life, full of stories and details. Holding the 500-page book, we can imagine life in the first two decades of the 21st century with all the fluctuations, the bright and dark colors of life, society, and people; the values gained and lost from the subsidy mechanism shifting to a market economy... through the haunting adversities in "Wild Heart", the illusions of happiness in "Paradise Illusion", "Abandoned Diamond", hot current issues in "The Howl of the Train"...

Reading and deeply feeling the work, poet Nguyet Vu believes that the Collection is also a colorful picture of contemporary life, which is the miserable lives of children who have fallen into the law or the ups and downs of women... Even though happiness is fragile, they still have to rise up to live, just like a cactus that still has to overcome the harshness of circumstances to bloom and beautify life.

Sharing about her works, writer Nguyen Thi Van Anh confided: “I am fortunate to have entered the creative path based on the work of a journalist. With the enthusiasm of a young writer, right from the beginning of my creative practice, I always felt happy to travel and write. Journalism has given me the opportunity to travel everywhere both domestically and internationally, and has allowed me to meet many classes of people in society, from ordinary farmers and workers to erudite intellectuals at research institutes, from death row inmates in Hoa Lo prison to high-ranking leaders of the State.

Every trip, every meeting brings me so many emotions about human nature, about human morality. Faced with the overwhelming reality of life, exposing before our eyes so many good and bad things, beautiful and ugly, only writing can express my feelings of love and hate, only the words sent to readers can express my heart, can contribute my small voice to make life better day by day...".

The heart of a woman writes…

The confession with the desire to contribute her small voice to a better life is also the "humanistic value" throughout this "Collection of Short Stories and Memoirs". Therefore, in the work of 25 short stories and 3 memoirs, one can encounter many types of people of many ages from many situations and many fates, with ironies, with good and evil intertwined, with the pain and torment of human life... But amidst the reality of life, the delicacy, responsibility and compassion of the pen have made those haunting stories still sparkle with humanity and life. Like the comment of literary critic To Phuong Lan: "The important thing that emerges from each story is the heart of the woman who writes always aiming at and hoping that each person can live for themselves, live honestly and each family is a warm home in a stable and good society".

In many pieces of reality, writer Nguyen Thi Van Anh seems to direct her pen to the fate of women in society with sharing and sympathy. There is a motherly love that sacrifices and protects despite having to endure the disobedience of her children (Idol), and the "evil" behavior of her daughter-in-law (Mother's Heart). There is the loyalty throughout the war years in which the wife sacrificed her youth to preserve the happiness of her family (Legend of Waiting for Husband). There are women in today's life who are not only "virtuous and virtuous" but also have to overcome many obstacles due to narrow-minded social views, such as the ideology that weighs heavily on the evaluation of human qualities. Or the "bright, joyful, and happy" smiles of Hoang Lan and her daughter with their reformed life on the basalt land of the Central Highlands (The Woman in the Courtroom)...

And besides, “the heart of the woman who writes” seems to have “melted” into each of the characters’ ideas, so that even though she has gone through losses, she still realizes the truth of life as a liberation for herself. As the writer Pham Dinh An commented: “Sometimes the surface of the writing is cold, harsh, and hot, but behind it is deep gratitude and generosity…”. That is shown in the story “The Wild Heart” which ends with the haunting words of the character: “The heart of the gorilla carries human genes that I have experimented with transplanting to save Tin’s life. But now I suddenly realize that if I can only save a life but lose a human being, it is better not to save it. It would be dangerous for this society if someone with a wild heart crowded in the crowd of humans”.

Or is it a woman who has wasted her youth, refused love, but at the end of her life realized: “If only I hadn’t looked up and dreamed of a paradise. I once mistakenly thought that the farm could replace the family, that the collective children could be my children. I was wrong. Getting married, having children, having a family, that’s what a woman needs to have...”.

It can be said that this unique “Short Stories and Memoirs Collection” is the heart and soul distilled from thousands of pages of writing that have been formed over more than half a century of journalism by journalist Nguyen Thi Van Anh. From a life full of experiences, a heart of a responsible writer, journalist Nguyen Thi Van Anh wrote with a very sincere thought: “Reading this collection, you will see that most of them are people, past realities, but I leave here a period in which the country and our generation lived, fought and experienced to love even more the good things of today, so that today's young generation knows that the things that are so ordinary before our eyes actually had to be exchanged for so much effort, dedication, even blood and bones of those who came before to have it”…

Ha Van

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/nha-van-nha-bao-nguyen-thi-van-anh-va-nhung-trang-van-giau-long-nhan-ai-post282378.html