During the war against the French he served in the Vietnam’s People Army, in Brigade 304. After 1954 he worked for Van Nghe Magazine for some time, and participated in the Nhan Van-Giai Pham movement promoted by Phan Khoi between 1956-1957. During this period he criticized the evils of the regime and its communist flatterers through his works such as The Same Old Flatterers, and Upturn the Game. When the movement was extinguished in 1958 he was sent to a concentration camp for some years. After his release he had to live under house arrest in his own homeland where he had to support himself and his family by doing manual labor in the fields and the quarries. He spent the rest of his life there as a self-employed laborer.
He is most famous for his “Mau Tim Hoa Sim” (“The Purple Sim Flowers”), a poem he created about the death of his young wife during the war. The poem was severely criticized by the communists for its “bourgeois sentimentalism,” which led to his being purged from the Army. He died on March 18, 2010 at the age of 95 in his homeland.
He never had any collection of his poems published during his lifetime, but some of his poems become so well-known that they are considered classic or “immortal.” His most popular works include:
The Same Old Flatterers
Ca Ravine
Night
The Purple Sim Flowers (1949)
The Paddy Flowers (1955)
Tomorrow
The Virgin Mother of Little Christ
Love in the Capital
He is considered a great Vietnamese poet, because his poems reflect his generation’s thoughts and feelings, and touch human hearts profoundly in a very special style and prosody. He was one of the first to contribute new features to free verse in Vietnam at the time.
Huu Loan had a great personality of an artist who never bent his pen under the menace of power and wealth, and whose integrity was highly respected by his contemporaries. One day in his homeland, while he was carrying stones to the market for sale, a cadre stopped him and asked him to dump the stone on the road, for his individualistic way of doing business was not allowed by the State which supported collectivism. He replied to the cadre that after his participation in the Nhan Van Giai Pham movement, he was considered to be a dangerous person, and was not allowed to join any State collectives. He could not become a cadre nor a thief, but he had to work to support his family anyhow. He had never seen any State which did not allow its citizens to work. If he was not allowed to work, then he could not do anything but become a beggar in the street, wearing a sign with these words: “ I’m Loan, a well-educated man who now becomes a beggar.” He lived with his family in such a humble cottage that some questioned why he did not have time to improve it, as it was not worthy for his good reputation. He simply replied, “I have been busy trying to learn to become a human.”
Notes:
Nhan Van Giai Pham Movement (1956-1958) is a democratic movement initiated by some famous scholars, writers and poets in Hanoi such as Phan Khoi, Hoang Cam, Tran Dan, Le Dat, Tu Phac, Phung Quan. Together they created works and published Nhan Van and Giai Pham to protest government policies that did not allow freedom of expression in writings and arts in North Vietnam at that time. The movement’s purpose was to ask for democracy and freedom of expression in creativity and cultural activities. Giai Pham was the name of a magazine published by Hoang Cam and Le Dat. In its Spring 1956 issue there were earth-shaking poems by Tran Dan (Nhat Dinh Thang/ We Are Determined to Defeat), Le Dat (Ong Binh Voi/ Mr. Bottle of Limestone), and Phung Quan (Cai Choi Quet Rac Ruoi/ The Broom Which Cleanses the Trash), which led to the prosecution and arrest of poets such as Tran Dan and Tu Phac, the termination of the magazine, and the confiscation of the Spring issue. However, in September 1956, Hoang Cam, Nguyen Huu Dang, Le Dat, and Tran Duy decided to work with Phan Khoi, a well-known and experienced scholar, to publish the bi-monthly Nhan Van. In its first issue, there were articles demanding for freedom of speech and expression for writers and artists. There was also an article and a cartoon describing Tran Dan with a scar on his neck, to remind the reader of the poet’s suicidal attempt when he was arrested because of his poem in Giai Pham Magazine. As the influence of the movement for freedom of speech and expression spread, and the government decided to pass an Act to halt freedom of the press, and shut down Nhan Van headquarters. Members of the movement were threatened and harassed. However, they continued their fight for democracy in another magazine called Van (Literature), which was published by the newly established Association of Writers. After some quiet time, members of the movement again had their works published in Van, demanding for freedom for writers and artists. At the end of 1957 and early 1958, the government started to punish the movement members outwardly. They were forced to attend re-education at Thai Ha Hamlet, to write self-criticism, and to learn and re-learn the government’s policies about culture and arts creativity. Many, including Hoang Cam and Tran Dan, could not have their works published by any publishing houses. Even friends had to keep them at a distance, for these people did not want to be noticed or harassed by the police. To make their ends meet, Hoang Cam and Tran Dan had do all kinds of work to bring food to their families. Once they both had to push ox carts like coolies, but they were soon exhausted, and could not continue that hard work after a while. From 1958 until 1988 (after Doi moi, or Open Door) they lived their darkest days. They kept on creating in silence and secret. Hoang Can’s Ve Kinh Bac/Back to Kinh Bac was circulated among his close friends for 20 years before it was discovered in 1982 as going to cross the borders for publication in a foreign country. The result was that Hoang Hung, Hoang Cam’s friend, got 39 months in prison, and Hoang Cam himself, 18 months in Hoa Lo Prison. After that incident and imprisonment, Hoang Cam’s wife died, and he himself suffered from a form of mental illness which was both depression and phobia paranoia. When Hoang Cam passed away in 2010, he had not received any apology nor his honor reinstated by the State authorities yet.
Sources:
http://nhipcauthegioi.hu/modules.php?name=News&op=viewst&sid=2831
http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%E1%BB%AFu_Loan
http://nhipcauthegioi.hu/modules.php?name=News&op=viewst&sid=2831
http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%E1%BB%AFu_Loan
http://nhipcauthegioi.hu/modules.php?name=News&op=viewst&sid=2894
http://nhipcauthegioi.hu/modules.php?name=News&op=viewst&sid=2895
