What's the signifigance of a refused literary prize in Vietnam?

October 29, 2006 3:08 PM

Can anyone help me make sense of this newsstory:
VietNamNet Bridge – Just a few days after the Vietnam Writers’ Association announced the awards for 2006, Ly Hoang Ly, a young Vietnamese poet, sent a letter of refusal to the association.
The Vietnam Writers’ Association awards are the most prestigious ones in the country for written works. This year, the fiction award was given to the book “Boundless rice field” by Nguyen Ngoc Tu, a young writer from the south, while the award for poems was given to poet Huu Thinh, chairman of the association.

Thinh has won the award several times.

In her letter to the association, Ly wrote that she thought that the judgement did not sound serious enough. She also said that candidates running for the awards were disrespected.”

This is not the first time an award from the Vietnam Writers’ Association has been refused. Previously, renowned Vietnamese author Ho Anh Thai declined the award given to him for his novel.

Ly Hoang Ly was born in 1975. She is a poet, artist and has had many exhibitions of installation launched in Vietnam as well as in other countries. Lo Lo is her second volume of poems; it was first published in 2005. Her previous one, Co trang (White grass), won the Yellow Apricot award given by Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper.

So, did Huu Thinh receive the award instead of Ly Hoang Ly, who refused it? Or did she refuse it before it was given out? Was there a third award that, because she refused it, was not given at all? Did she resign from the Vietnam Writers' Association? Does this have any signifigance in Vietnam besides literati infighting (e.g. aesthetic, generational, personal, political)?

Or, in other words, what's going on here?

posted by Kattullus to society & culture (4 comments total)

Google search result #1 for Vietnam Writers’ Association awards:

"...and a poetry collection titled 'Lo Lo' by Ly Hoang Ly were also awarded."

Ly Hoang Ly refused a non-first-place award (for a poetry collection), but Huu Thinh won first place (for a poetry collection).
posted by mistersix at 4:35 PM on October 29, 2006

I received an e-mail from andrew cooke:

curious. i googled "letter of refusal" and one hit described a letter someone wrote to object to someone else getting an appointment. so it may be that it's a standard term for something like what i would call "blackballing" (but that may be an english term). that's consistent with this being an award from the writer's union, which presumably represents the poet who wrote the letter.

in other words, she's saying: i refuse to support your candidate.

maybe?
posted by Kattullus at 4:38 PM on October 29, 2006

Not sure this helps with the confusion issue, but from what I've heard about the Vietnamese literary world, the stakes may be much higher than they appear. If I recall correctly, the Writer's Association is the one and only writer's association, and it's run by the state. Literature in general, and poetry in particular, is central to the culture & history of Vietnam -- not at all the marginalized practice it is in the West. The association exists to promote poetry in more or less traditional forms which praises Vietnamese culture and/or the state. Poets who attempt to work outside of the association -- which means merely sharing their works with their fellow poets (some of whom are spies for the association), not publishing -- have traditionally been jailed and/or exiled. Economic liberalization has improved the situation somewhat -- now poets working outside the association are no longer considered enemies of the state and, while they are generally no longer persecuted as such, the association still doesn't recognize them or permit them to publish.

I could have all of this wrong -- it comes from the somewhat hazy memory of a conversation I had with a with someone who happened to know an exiled Vietnamese poet. My point, I suppose, is that the seemingly simple gesture of refusing the award could actually be a significant & rather courageous political statement -- and that, further, it would be no surprise if the forfeited award would go to the chairman of the state-run association.
posted by treepour at 9:28 PM on October 29, 2006

is andrew cooke banned?
posted by Rumple at 12:06 AM on October 30, 2006