SOURCE: “Some Background Notes on Nhat Linh,” in France-Asie/Asia, Vol. XXII, No. 2, 2nd Quarter, 1968, pp. 205–220.

In the following excerpt, O’Harrow discusses the political and cultural changes during which Nhat Linh wrote and published.

This brief essay is intended to shed some light on the early life of Nguyen Tuong Tam who was one of the most widely read authors of his day in Vietnam¹. With the present upheaval in Vietnam, it is difficult to tell whether the works of Nguyen Tuong Tam will continue to enjoy the vast readership they had in the past; this apart, Tam was in many ways representative of his generation and for those of us who are interested in modern Vietnamese history, he is a reflection of the troubled period in which he lived.

The Context

In the latter third of the Nineteenth and the first part of the twentieth century...