Telling stories: A set of five books, Kho Tang Truyen Co Tich Viet Nam collected and rewritten by professor and cultural researcher Nguyen Dong Chi. — Photo courtersy of Tre Publishing House

HCM CITY  (VNS) — A book collection on Vietnamese fairytales collected and rewritten by Nguyen Dong Chi, one of the country's most popular cultural researchers, has been released in HCM City.

The collection, Kho Tang Truyen Co Tich Viet Nam (The Treasure of Vietnamese Fairytales), includes five books and lively pictures by young artists of the Tre (Youth) Publishing House.

The works include 150 stories of friendship, love and dreams, with highlights of the country's history, culture and lifestyle.

More than 105,000 copies of each book have been printed by Tre, which signed a copyright deal with the representative of the late author to republish his books.

Chi was born in a traditional family in 1915 in Ha Tinh Province. He worked for dozens of newspapers, magazines, and institutes.

From 1977 to 1981, he was the director of the Institute of Han Nom Studies (Han Chinese and the ancient Vietnamese ideographic Nom script) in Ha Noi.

He published 26 books and research collections in different fields of history, folk literature and culture.

He spent nearly 25 years to collect, rewrite and translate 2,000 fairytales from Vietnamese and foreign works.

He died in 1984. In 1996, he was posthumously awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize for literature category from the Government.

Summer book fair

Thousands of children living in rural districts of HCM City are taking part in the Summer Book Fair 2015, which opened yesterday by the city's Book Distribution Company (Fahasa) in co-operation with local authorities.

The five-day event displays 300,000 Vietnamese and foreign books and comics in different fields of literature, science and arts. Many products, including books and stationary products, are on sale at discounts of 17-50 per cent.

The fair includes seminars and contests to encourage reading among youth. Dozens of writers and cultural researchers are invited to give speeches and share their experience and love for writing and reading. — VNS