Nguyen Du was a Vietnamese poet and scholar-official, born in 1766 in Thang Long, now Hanoi, and died in 1820 in Hue, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in Vietnamese literature. Coming from a noble, well-educated family with a tradition of literary achievement, he is best known for composing The Tale of Kieu, a 3,254 line verse novel now considered the masterpiece of Vietnamese literature. Nguyen Du lived through a turbulent period marked by the collapse of successive Vietnamese dynasties, and his poetry often reflects concerns about social injustice and human suffering drawn from that experience; he died at 54, likely of cholera, and was posthumously honored by the emperor for his loyalty and integrity.
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Original Language FAQs
Where did the story of The Tale of Kieu come from?
The plot comes from Kim Vân Kiều (a story written in classical Chinese) which Nguyễn Du set in the Vietnam of his own time.
Nguyễn Du did not invent the plot from nothing. He made use of the plot of Kim Vân Kiều, a story written in classical Chinese, and set it against the backdrop of the deteriorating state of Vietnam at the end of the eighteenth century.
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Source Nguyen Du, Wikipedia
Sources
1. Nguyen Du, Wikipedia
Infobox
3 January 1766 - 16 September 1820
Original language statement
Nguyen Du was a Vietnamese poet and scholar-official, born in 1766 in Thang Long, now Hanoi, and died in 1820 in Hue, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in Vietnamese literature.
In Genre: Poetry, Lead paragraph
was a poet and scholar-official, widely acclaimed as one of the most important writers of Vietnamese literature
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