Location
Age
Area of FocusAbout Huynh Sanh's Work
Huynh Sanh Thông, a translator and editor, made the classics of Vietnamese poetry more accessible to western audiences.
Thông was recognized by Vietnamese writers from all points of the political spectrum for his nonpartisan stance in translating and preserving traditional literature. His translations included The Tale of Kieu (1973), The Heritage of Vietnamese Poetry (1979), Flowers from Hell (1984), and An Anthology of Vietnamese Poems: From the Eleventh through the Twentieth Centuries (1996). His independent research on the origins of language and culture produced a large manuscript, from which chapters appeared in the Journal of Unconventional History.
Biography
Thông was a retired lecturer at Yale University, where he was previously the director of Vietnamese Studies. He also served as the editorial director of the Southeast Asian Refugee Project, an archive for oral accounts, memoirs, histories and writings contributed by refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. In this role Thông edited The Vietnam Forum, collections of literary works on Vietnamese history, folklore, and politics, and Lac-Viet, a series of poetry books, essays, and novels by individual authors. In 1996, he launched a new semiannual journal, The Vietnam Review.
Thông received a B.A. (1951) from Ohio University and did graduate work at Cornell University (1952).
Last updated January 1, 2005.
Published on July 1, 1987
