HA NOI — Vietnamese and American writers have worked hard to commemorate 20 years of co-operating together to heal the scars left from the war, build cultural bridges and to promote Vietnamese literature in the US.
The Road of Beauty, a workshop dedicated to post-war Vietnamese literature in the US, was held earlier this week in Hoa Binh with the participation of Vietnamese and US writers.
In attendance at the workshop were representatives of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Central Committee's popularisation and Education Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The workshop underlined the role of Vietnamese writers and poets in promoting Viet Nam's image to foreign countries.
The participants discussed the role of US writers, translators, researchers and media in presenting Vietnamese literature and culture to American audiences during the past 35 years. Participating members talked about the activities of Vietnamese writers and cultural exchange programmes, and the influence of Vietnamese culture and literature on Americans' perceptions of Viet Nam.
Representatives also highlighted the important role US writers contributed to introducing Vietnamese literature to US readers at the William Joiner Centre of Massachusetts University (WJC), which is a research centre dedicated to studying the social consequences of war. On the sidelines of the workshop, the two countries' writers attended a poetry session appropriately named, Playing Basketball with the Viet Cong.
The poetry night was named after a poem by Kevin Bowen, WJC's director. Bowen had previously participated in a basketball match with writer Nguyen Quang Sang when he visited Bowen's house in the US. Seven American and more than 50 Vietnamese poets and writers participated in the programme to exchange their works.
"Sang and I played basketball together everyday during his visit to my home," said Bowen. "I was a soldier in Viet Nam when I was young and when the war ended, I had an opportunity to play with a Vietnamese writer."
Earlier, the American writers had meetings with literature students at the Ha Noi Education and Training and Ha Noi Culture universities. They also attended a painting-music exhibition in Ha Noi.
President Nguyen Minh Triet encouraged the WJC to introduce Viet Nam's culture and literature to the American public in order to strengthen bilateral ties. The President made the remark when he received the US writers in Ha Noi on Tuesday.
Bowen responded that all the writers at the centre love Viet Nam and its people, and hoped that exchanges between the two countries' writers would be conducted more frequently in the future.
The WJC was formed in 1982 and was named after William Bill Joiner, who was a veteran and Boston's first director of the city's Office of Veterans Affairs. Largely staffed by veterans from the Viet Nam War, the centre sponsors research, courses, conferences, exhibits, workshops, and exchanges.
During the past 20 years, Bowen and his centre have invited Vietnamese writers, poets and researchers to the US to talk about their country, people and policies in order to strengthen relations with the US and other countries. They have also received many delegations of Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin and called on Americans to support the victims. — VNS