"From this city" has just been published by Literature Publishing House, Sbooks will release in 2025. The work has a capacity of 256 pages with a print run of 5,000 copies. In the work, Tong Phuoc Bao chooses to tell the story with old breaths, full memories and deep love.
"From this city" is not developed by the author in the direction of familiar documentary or nostalgic ramblings, but rather it is small but evocative fragments of memories. It could be the sound of a car rattling in a small alley, the sound of a vendor's hawking every morning, the characteristic humidity after a sudden rain... Everything is depicted clearly and vividly like a slow-motion film of the past.
Tong Phuoc Bao's writing is like a small river, flowing through old memories, through winding alleys, through the sound of rain falling on the corrugated iron roof or the flickering light of oil lamps in the night. It is a profound writing that makes the reader tremble and sob because of its utmost sincerity. He tells the story with the mindset of a child returning to the bridge of language, recalling memories.
The characteristic of Tong Phuoc Bao's writing is its poignancy. It permeates even the smallest things. A rainstorm can evoke childhood memories. An old apartment building can become a symbol of a school of life. To him, a land is not just a place, it is the soul, the flesh and blood of a person.
Reading Tong Phuoc Bao is reading in silence, letting your heart speak. The simplicity and evocativeness lingers in the reader's heart for a long time. It is like a silent note, helping us slow down to contemplate, to love more the land and people that live forever in our memories.
There are many impressive excerpts that make readers sink into their memories: "I believe that every old apartment building on this land carries within itself a mission. The mission is to record the ups and downs of the times of this land that is more than 300 years old. That mission may fade with time, become mossy, or disappear when the old apartments are replaced or newly built, but the life stories and people of this school of life are still thick in the vast chronicles of urban streets."
"From this city" is suitable for all readers, but many young people have felt attracted to the journey of discovery , understanding more about the cultural depth of the city they live in. Older readers rediscover familiar memories, children far from home rediscover a part of their soul full of longing.
Like many other works by Tong Phuoc Bao, "From This City" quietly records what is gradually fading away. Not deeply depicting the loss, nor trying to cling to the past in a tragic way, not forcing the emotional realm, Tong Phuoc Bao only tells and lets the memories speak by themselves with the breath of time and nostalgia.
For that reason, "From This City" is not a book that can be read in a hurry. It is a work that makes one feel regret, the fragility of things that used to be familiar and the many changes that are happening in harmony. From that silence comes the strongest voice, because what is being lost is often what was most deeply attached to people.
It seems that from the multicultural cradle: father's hometown An Giang, mother's hometown Dong Thap, growing up in Ho Chi Minh City and currently living in Binh Duong, it has contributed to blending a tree with a unique perspective, a writing style that is both simple and sophisticated, imbued with the soul of the South but still very intelligent, sophisticated, and contemporary.
In recent years, Tong Phuoc Bao has made a familiar mark on the contemporary Vietnamese literary scene. His works of all genres appear frequently, attracting attention for their quality and form of expression. To date, he has also won more than 20 prestigious literary awards, demonstrating his abundant, regular and powerful writing ability.
He has made his mark with the First Prize in the Short Story Contest "Half Fills the World " (Culture and Literature Publishing House, 2019); First Prize in the Essay Contest "The City I Love" (Thanh Nien Newspaper, 2020); First Prize in the Writing Contest "Stories of the Rivers" (VietNamNet Newspaper, 2024); Awarded the Best Short Story of 2020 by the Army Literature Magazine... However, what makes readers love the writer is the rustic path that makes literature become close, simple and profound like the author's personality expressed through each story and language he writes.
Source: https://nhandan.vn/ve-dep-hoai-niem-tu-thanh-pho-nay-cua-nha-van-tong-phuoc-bao-post887676.html
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