Hanoi at Midnight: Stories


 
 
 
 
 DVAN Founders
 Isabelle Thuy Pelaud
 and
 Viet Thanh Nguyen
 Also in the series:
 Constellations of Eve, by Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood
 
 
 Hà Nội at 
 Midnight
 Stories
 Bảo Ninh
 Translated and edited byQuan Manh Ha and Cab Tran
 Texas Tech University Press
 
 
 Copyright © 2023 by Texas Tech University Press
 All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including electronic storage and retrieval systems, except by explicit prior written permission of the publisher. Brief passages excerpted for review and critical purposes are excepted.
 This book is typeset in EB Garamond. The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997). ♾
 Design by Hannah Gaskamp
 Cover design by Hannah Gaskamp 
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Bảo Ninh, author. | Ha, Quan Manh, translator and editor. | Tran, Cab, translator and editor.
 Title: Hanoi at Midnight: Stories / Bảo Ninh; translated and edited by Quan Manh Ha and Cab Tran. 
 Description: Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press, [2023] | Series: Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network Series | Summary: “The first English translation of several short stories by Bao Ninh, arguably the most famous writer in Vietnam.”—Provided by publisher. 
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022031909 (print) | LCCN 2022031910 (ebook) | 
 ISBN 978-1-68283-162-5 (cloth) | ISBN 978-1-68283-1-632 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCSH: Bảo Ninh—Translations into English. | LCGFT: Short stories. 
 Classification: LCC PL4378.9.B37 H36 2022 (print) | LCC PL4378.9.B37 (ebook) |
 DDC 895.9/2233—dc23/eng/20220708 
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022031909
 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022031910
 Printed in the United States of America
 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 / 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 Texas Tech University Press
 Box 41037
 Lubbock, Texas 79409-1037 USA
 800.832.4042
 [email protected]
 www.ttupress.org
 
 
 Dâng tặng các anh em đồng đội của tôi ở trung đoàn 24, sư đoàn 10 bộ binh, 
 và những người đã chiến đấu và hy sinh cho hoà bình ở Việt Nam.
 For my fellow soldiers of Regiment 24, Infantry Division 10,
 and the people who have fought and died for peace in Việt Nam.
 
 
 Contents
 Foreword
 Acknowledgments
 A Note on the Translation 
 Farewell to a Soldier’s Life
 Beloved Son 
 301
 Letters from the Year of the Water Buffalo
 The Camp of the Seven Dwarfs
 Giang
 Reminiscences
 Evidence
 The Secret of the River
 An Unnamed Star
 Hà Nội at Midnight
 Untamed Winds
 Copyrights and Permissions
 About the Author
 
 
 Foreword
 Bảo Ninh is internationally known for his debut novel The Sorrow of War, the first Vietnamese novel about the American War to be translated into English, published in 1994. Like his esteemed contemporaries, such as Nguyễn Minh Châu, Nguyễn Huy Thiệp, Lê Minh Khuê, Lê Lựu, and Nguyễn Quang Thiều, Bảo Ninh has received considerable acclaim both inside Vietnam and abroad for his penetrating fiction about the war and its aftermath. The Sorrow of War and his short stories represent a significant contribution to the diversity and realism of Vietnamese literature since 1986, the same year that ushered in the Reform Period in Việt Nam.
 Considered one of the best Vietnamese novels about the war, The Sorrow of War has been translated into roughly twenty languages and has received prestigious national and international awards. In the United States the novel has gained substantial attention from critics and scholars and is widely taught in college courses on literature about the Việt Nam War. Bảo Ninh’s novel eloquently depicts the traumatic memory and survivor’s guilt of the male protagonist, Kiên, who is unable to return to normal life after witnessing the horrendous realities of war, the indelible deaths of his fellow soldiers, and the fragility of life when juxtaposed with the atrocity of warfare. Kiên’s postwar life is characterized by regret, haunting nightmares, and tragic-heroic memories of war—all of which deviate from the patriotic themes commonly found in Vietnamese literature prior to 1986. But Bảo Ninh also writes movingly about topics other than war: his observations of daily life in contemporary Việt Nam, unfulfilled promises, domestic conflicts, and romantic love, etc. The twelve short stories in this collection are among his best, with ten of them appearing in English translation for the first time. 
 Serendipitous encounters are a recurring motif in Bảo Ninh’s short stories: some accidental and ephemeral, others lasting longer. For instance, “Giang” depicts a romantic encounter between a recruit and the eponymous heroine at a water well in a desolate mountainous area. “301” recounts two meetings: the first between an artillery tank’s crew members and the daughter of a photography studio owner, and the second between the narrator and the daughter, now an older woman. The former occurs near the end of the war, and the latter during the postwar period. “The Camp of the Seven Dwarfs” relates the fortuitous encounter during a rainy night between the narrator—a postal worker—and a soldier who survives harsh realities in an environment where people have to onerously cultivate and raise livestock to supply food for soldiers on the front. Their conversations reveal the soldier’s painful memories of love, nostalgia, regret, and the sorrow of human life. In “An Unnamed Star,” the meeting between a team of soldiers, a decrepit old man, and his daughter evokes the odor of gunpowder, the image of a war-torn, impoverished village, and the poignant memory of the loss of one’s beloved. The shared memories during these unanticipated encounters accentuate the fragility of the human condition in both wartime and its aftermath. The tragic and romantic memories resemble shards of bomb shrapnel that exacerbate the psychological wounds caused by war. In “Untamed Winds,” the characters find themselves trapped in the monstrosity of war, between love and political ideology. Similarly, “Letters from the Year of the Water Buffalo” poignantly captures the blurred line between “us” and “them,” between genuine camaraderie and intense antagonism. War generates coincidences, sympathy, compassion, and even suspicion in “The Secret of