My first encounter with Nguyen Huy Thiep and the story on how this painting was made

    Nguyen HuyThiep is my favorite Vietnamese writer ever. I read his short stories "Tuongve huu" (The general retires), "Pham tiet" (Chastity),"Vanglua" (Fired Gold), "Kiem sac" (Sharp sword) and many others from theseries "Nhung ngon gio Hua Tat" (The winds of Hua Tat) when I was stillin Russia in 1989. One year later, when I returned back to Hanoi, the firstperson whom I met was Thiep. I just went to search for him in the city.Finally I was told that he was working at the publishing house "Education"(Nha Xuat ban Giao duc), where he made copies for the drawings to be printedin school text books. During our first meeting at a small cafe near hisworking place, I proposed to make his portrait. He came to my house topose for my pencil preparation drawings. The rest of the composition wasmy fantasy. Behind him I put the characters of his famous short stories.In the upper left corner there are portraits of the great masters of humanliterarture and culture of 19th and 20th centuries, Victor Hugo, ZigmundFreud, Anatole France, Guy de Maupassant, Alexander Soljenitsin, FedorDostoevsky, Boris Pasternak, in whose works I found some relationship withwhat I read from Thiep. At the right-hand side is the scene of a caravan passing through a desert with some dogs running after. "Les chiens aboient, la caravane passe." (The dogs bark, the caravan passes). Frogs, snakes, centipedes, etc. gather at his seat.

   In the begining of 1990s, Thiep was a "problematic"writer. His short stories caused many hot debates in the literature circleand in the press in Vietnam as well as in general public. In order to showthis painting at my one-man exhibition in 1991 in Hanoi, I had to changethe title from "Portrait of the writer Nguyen Huy Thiep" to "The Dreamof the Artist" to pass the censor from the authority. Thiep once toldme: "If I had enough money, I would buy this paingting."

   I haven't seen him for a long time.Recently, I wasdelighted to read his new short story entitled "A love story told in arainy night" in the collection of "The good short stories of 1999" (Nhungtryen ngan hay nam 1999) as well as his novel "Tuoi hai muoi yeu dau" (The beloved twenty-year old age). I'm glad to see that he is keeping writing.

"TheGeneral Retires" (Tuong ve huu) ( translated by Greg Lockhart)

"FiredGold" (Vang Lua) ( translated by by Peter Zinoman)

"Crossing the river" (New collection of short stories by Nguyen Huy Thiep, edited by Nguyen Nguyet Cam and Dana Sachs, Curbstone Press 2003)