Chu Tử
From: Eric Henry
Date: Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 8:41 AM
Dear VSGers,
As part of a larger project, I'm trying to gather some basic information concerning the anti-Communist novelist and journalist Chu Tử. Among the items I am not sure about are:
1. his birthdate -- I think he was born around 1915, give or take a few years.
2. his real name -- I think it might have been "Chu Văn Bình," but his friends seem sometimes to have addressed him as "Sơn."
3. Details concerning his novelistic output -- he wrote a series of novels with titles consisting of a single syllable. The most well known was "Yêu." Another was "Sống." I think another was "Ghen." But I think there were some other single-syllable titles as well.
Among the things I *do* know about this figure are:
In 1966, he was the object of an assassination attempt organized by the NLF. He was seriously wounded, but recovered.
In 1973 he appeared as an actor in a movie based on his own novel "Yêu" directed by Đỗ Tiến Đức.
A son of his committed suicide with a revolver.
On April 30, 1975, while attempting to escape VN by boat, he was hit by shrapnel from a B-40 anti-tank grenade. He died some hours later on the boat.
Any help with items 1, 2, 3, or other matters would be much appreciated. Please reply either on or off list as you think appropriate.
Thanks,
Eric Henry
Eric Henry, PhD
Senior Lecturer
Asian Studies Department
CB 3267
University of North Carolina
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From: Tuan Hoang
Date: Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 12:01 PM
Eric,
Chu Tử was born in 1917, and the bulk of his fiction consists of five novels, whose titles are indeed one-syllable: Sống, Yêu, Ghen, Tiền, and Loạn. The first two were best-known, by far: popular to many urban South Vietnamese readers but scandalous to others. I believe that most of these novels (if not all) were initially published in serial in one or another of Saigon's newspapers before coming out in book form. As far as I know, he ceased writing fiction after 1963 or 1964 & devoted himself to publishing the daily Sống and at least a couple of periodicals.
From what I've read, I've never seen him addressed as Sơn, but of course that could be the case. Note, however, that his oldest son's name is Chu Sơn. You may want to double-check if references of Sơn were to him or his son, esp. since it's not common for Vietnamese to give their children the same first names as the parents'. This son is mentioned in an oft-copied tribute/memorial a few years ago from his friend, the novelist Nguyễn Thụy Long.
http://vnthuquan.net/truyen/truyen.aspx?tid=2qtqv3m3237ntnnn4ntn31n343tq83a3q3m3237nvn
~Tuan Hoang