{"product_id":"chronicles-of-a-village-9780300276404","title":"Chronicles of a Village","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn incantatory poetic novel that interweaves the legends, tragedies, and histories of a village in Vietnam \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"The book bursts with characters, poetry, philosophy, romance, violence, and struggle. . . . A dreamlike, original, strangely hopeful book.\"--\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e At the foot of Mun Mountain in central Vietnam, a self-appointed scribe collects the stories of his neighbors--tales of love, nature, and war--and weaves them into a surrealist history of their farming community. In crystalline fragments resembling prose poems, the scribe eternalizes the vanishing beauty and tragic transformation of the village--its sacred forests, astonishing animals, mythical figures, and human lives nurtured by a profound love for soil and sky, as well as its catastrophes: ecological destruction, political purges, asphyxiating modernity, violence, and indoctrination in the name of progress. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Nguyễn Thanh Hiện's \u003ci\u003eChronicles of a Village\u003c\/i\u003e, the writer's first work to be translated into English, is an elegy for a place and a people; a profound meditation on how history is created, destroyed, manipulated, and rewritten; and a tribute to the beauty and \"fatal historical disabilities of a land.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNguyễn Thanh Hiện\u003c\/b\u003e (b. 1940), one of the most important writers in Vietnam, is the author of numerous novels, poems, and short stories. \u003ci\u003eChronicles of a Village\u003c\/i\u003e is his first work to be translated into English. He lives in Qui Nhơn, Vietnam. \u003cb\u003eQuyên Nguyễn-Hoàng\u003c\/b\u003e is a widely published writer, translator, and art curator, and is winner of a Gabo Prize for Literature in Translation. She lives in Saigon, Vietnam.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Yale University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50627656352018,"sku":"9780300276404","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_7c928c1a-7cc7-4ea0-bcfe-325601de4369.jpg?v=1732707280","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/chronicles-of-a-village-9780300276404","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}