|
 John
Balaban has been known among American poets as one whose
many works are best-sellers. These books are not about
America, but of his English translations of well known
Vietnamese poems, including a collection of poems in Nom
scripts by famous poetess Ho Xuan Huong (in the 18th
century) and “The Tale of Kieu” by the great poet Nguyen Du
(in the 18th century).
Sitting
on a bench near Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi , John Balaban told
me why he chose poems by Ho Xuan Huong and Nguyen Du to
translate into English. “I am a professor of English, and an
American poet to be present in Vietnam during the Vietnam
War. That might be the reason why I am encouraged to
translate Vietnamese poems,” he said.
 Balaban
said 20,000 copies of his translation of Ho Xuan Huong’s
poems published in 2000 were sold. It was such a
“phenomenon” that the American press spent much time and
effort studying it. President Bill Clinton, during his visit
to Hanoi in 2000, also mentioned John’s translation as a
cultural phenomenon of great concern in the United States at
that time.
 Actually,
Balaban’s translation of Ho Xuan Huong´s poems helped many
American readers understand the fate and strong response
full of femininity of the Vietnamese women of the past. They
were known for not only having virtues due to close ties to
family education and principles, but also having strong
characters. They dared to spell out the taboos of society
such as sex and an intimate sexual life, etc., through poems
which are pure, sensitive and graphic. Their response
surprised many American readers because deep in their mind
the American audience thought that those sensitive matters
could only be spoken by them.
 Balaban
said he also wanted to bring American readers another story
about life of the Vietnamese women in the feudal period. It
was the poetic work "The Tale of Kieu” by great Vietnamese
poet Nguyen Du (1766-1820), telling about the talented, but
unhappy fate of a young woman - Kieu. According to Balaban,
“The Tale of Kieu” is not only a literary masterpiece of the
Vietnamese people, but it also concealed a lot of strange
details. The strangest one is about the word “fate” defined
by Buddhists, which seems to go along with, and was closely
attached to Kieu’s talented, but misfortune life. For those
reasons, Balaban decided to translate this poetic work into
English with the whole-hearted feeling of an American poet
full of passion and aspiration. (At the time John and I were
talking, his translation of this work is being processed).
Saying
farewell, Balaban asked me to reserve one copy of Vietnam
Pictorial with the article about him and send it to him as a
souvenir. I agreed. In addition I promised that when his
English translation of “The Tale of Kieu” is made public, I
will invite him to sit by Hoan Kiem Lake again, and I’ll
listen to his story about the “fate” that tied him to the
story of her life.
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Professor John Balaban was born in 1943 in
Philadelphia (USA). He is the Poet in Residence and
Professor of English at North Carolina University in
Raleigh, North Carolina ( USA ). He has many works
about Vietnam, including “Ca Dao Vietnam: A
Bilingual Anthology of Vietnamese Folk Poetry”, “
Vietnam – The Land We Never Knew” and “ Vietnam – A
Traveler’s Literary Companion”. Of particular
popularity is his translation of Ho Xuan Huong’s
poems entitled “Spring Essence – The Poetry of Ho
Xuan Huong”. John Balaban is now President of the
Vietnamese Nom Preservation Foundation – an American
non-governmental organization. |
Story by
Thanh Hoa - Photos by Thong Thien
(Vietnam Pictorial) |
