Journey Against the Sun by Nguyen Mot published by Song Magazine.

DA NANG (VNS) — A novel, Nguoc Mat Troi (Journey Against the Sun), written by novelist Nguyen Mot, has been translated into English and will be published in the US by Song Magazine.

The author confirmed to Viet Nam News that the 214-page novel, which was published in Viet Nam in 2012 and reprinted, was translated into English by translators Nguyen Hoang Phong and Pham Viem Phuong this year before it got in the first issue by Song Magazine, and introduced online through Amazon.

Mot said it's his first novel that is translated and published by a publisher abroad.

He said the novel depicts the long history of Catholicism in Viet Nam by featuring a beautiful reasonless love affair between a holy woman, Ngan Ha, and a photographer Nguyen Chac, who in a journey back to his homeland disappeared without a trace.

Writer Ta Duy Anh said: "It's a tough novel topic. The author has been the first successful novelist introducing the Catholic religion's history in literary works in Viet Nam."

Writer Suong Nguyet Minh also wrote his foreword for the novel: "The novel, ‘Journey Against the Sun' reflects vividly a variety of arts in a novel. You can find a short story in one section, but a theatre scenario of mysterious history or screenplay in other sections in the novel."

"Readers can find confusion of time and art and between old and new characters or ghostly protagonists. The novel depicts the sadness of the writer, but not melancholy. It really touches the ultimate of sorrow."

The author said: "You may be disturbed by fabulous stories and discrete patches of fates which are like a melancholy dream you could hardly recount fully after waking up."

Mot was born in 1964 in Duy Xuyen district in the central Quang Nam Province, but his parents died during the American war.

He left his native land for the southern Dong Nai Province after the country's reunification in 1975. He worked as a teacher at a primary school from 1983-97, and a journalist for Tien Phong (Vanguard) Newspaper in 1998-2007.

He has been working for Truong Hai automobile company since then.

Mot joined as a member of the Viet Nam's Writers Association in 2006 and had over 10 novels.

His Dat Troi Van Vu (Rain threatens Earth and Heaven) novel won C prize at a novel competition by the Association in 2006 to 2010. The latest novel is expected to be published in the US later this month. — VNS