Author Huyen Thanh Thanh: "I am indebted to literature."

Huyen Thanh Thanh, whose real name is Le Thi Thanh Huyen, was born in 1984 in Vinh City, Nghe An Province. She is an electrical engineer who graduated from Hanoi University of Technology and is currently the Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of TRACONIMEX Joint Stock Company, a company in the construction, trading, and import-export sectors.

Many people are surprised that a girl working in that field could write such gentle and profound poems, poems that touch the soul and emotions of the reader, as painter Phan Thiet once remarked, "a young poetic voice but full of love, full of restless anxieties," and as poet Nguyen The Ky described her as "a new poetic face, individualistic, gentle, strong, creative, rebellious, and groundbreaking." But surely, upon meeting Huyen Thanh Thanh, many would think like me, that she was born to be a writer, because in every word, every glance, there is always a hidden yearning for art stronger than anything else.

Portrait of poet Huyền Thanh Thanh. Photo: PV

From a young age, Huyen loved to sing and had a beautiful voice, but her father, who studied directing at the Nghe An School of Culture and Arts, knew how fulfilling but also how difficult life could be for an artist, so he didn't want his daughter to pursue music. Occasionally, Huyen would sneak away from home to practice performing arts in her village. "The more you're forbidden, the more you yearn for it," Huyen said about her childhood passion.

Huyen's house is in Trung Do ward, right near the foot of Quyet mountain. She recounts that she often sings while washing dishes, especially on summer nights when the moon rises above the cliff near her house. Huyen's singing echoes in the quiet night. The little girl listens to that clear sound reverberating far and wide, as if she were soaring in her longing and returning to understand herself better, to understand the quiet yet poignant sound that is growing stronger in her soul every day.

But Huyen chose literature because, even now, many years later, singing is just a way for her to "meditate." Literature gives her so much more; it allows her to reflect, think, change, integrate, and soar high on her long journey. She started writing poetry at the age of 14 or 15 with bright, melancholic verses, and to this day, Huyen Thanh Thanh has gone through a whole process of experimentation, filled with passionate excitement, chaotic pain, and quiet reflection. Because more than anyone else, Huyen's sensitive soul has taken deep root in the joys and sorrows of life, understanding that art is something that takes flight from the truest happiness and sorrow, from the most painful experiences.

Cover of a poetry collection by Huyền Thanh Thanh. Photo: PV

Like many other girls, Huyen had a warm and loving childhood with her family. But unlike many others, Huyen's youth was also submerged in much bitterness and hardship. From the ninth grade, she had to work as a tutor to help support her family because her mother was seriously ill. For decades, even after becoming a student at the Polytechnic University, Huyen still had to earn money to support herself and her studies.

Every day before going to teach, she would wait for a message from the parents to inform them she was taking a day off. Exhausted and weary of having to shoulder the burden of earning a living from such a young age, Huyen sometimes wanted to collapse but had to force herself to stand up. Before going to teach, Huyen tried to think of the glass of orange juice, lemonade... the drinks her employers would make for her during tutoring sessions, as a goal and a source of joy to alleviate her weariness. Those drinks, after all, were the only glimmer of hope in her long day.

Huyen Thanh Thanh's poems from those days were tinged with sadness. She wrote poems for her mother, and she wrote poems for herself. During the days when her mother was seriously ill and confined to bed, seeing the large, mottled sores on her mother's hands, Huyen felt a pang of pain in her heart. Out of love for her mother, Huyen tried to forget her fatigue, leaving home at 7 PM every day and returning at 11 PM to teach.

Heartbroken, pitiful, sad..., but then, as Huyen said, "it was poetry, it was art that saved my life." "If life as I saw it was full of sorrow, suffering, and even filth, then poetry and art made me see the world differently, making people and everything before me seem good, beautiful, and pure," Huyen also said.

Currently, Huyen is writing poetry, short stories, and novels. She has published her first poetry collection titled "On Every Wild Footprint" (Vietnam Writers Association Publishing House, 2017). The collection was praised as a success by artist and Meritorious Artist Quach Truong Son, who said, "Huyen Thanh Thanh has poured out her emotions to play with words in a very magical way, showing Huyen Thanh Thanh as a phenomenon that is both very real and very poetic." Poet Tran Quang Quy described the author of the poetry collection with words like "sensitive, complex, and wild."

Huyen's poetry spans a wide range of themes, from family affection, romantic love, and love for her homeland to fleeting, gentle emotions that are both real and deeply human. Sometimes, it's simply a fleeting glimpse of something, like a street scene, a red traffic light, or something that briefly appears in her mind, enough to resonate with her inner feelings and burst forth into poetry. That's why reading Huyen's poetry is about feeling, not just understanding. Huyen told me: "Only then can I truly live life to the fullest with what I have."

Huyen Thanh Thanh shared that she is happy to live in two worlds: business and art. Photo: PV

Indeed, to understand Huyen's poetry, one cannot simply skim over the words. One must pause, slowly savoring each word and its resonance.“What is sweet or bitter? / Two words of affection / A knife casually stuck / in the red apple / The lonely traveler / suddenly bursts forth like a gong / Who knows that / bitterness lurks in a naive play”(Illusion). Or:“And the stage is dry. Dancing. A filthy, dark purple. But the artist remains passionate. Love. The beetle. The toes glide. Not a single mistake is made amidst the tangled mess of life.”(Before the thunderstorm).

Faced with such poems, one cannot simply skim through them. There will be some difficulty in understanding, due to the clash of unusual words, the simultaneous presence of indistinct images, but after all, once one has felt the poetry not from the surface of the words but from a deeper level, a beautiful world of poetry will unfold, a complete and sweet world.

I asked Huyen Thanh Thanh why she chose the Polytechnic University and electrical engineering instead of literature or a school related to literature. The young poet said that she had chosen both. Every day she lives in two worlds: one is business, the other is poetry and art.

“But I feel fortunate because of this, because those two worlds haven’t divided me. I can still be myself, because ultimately, poetry isn’t separate from life, a poet isn’t isolated from reality, but on the contrary, needs to feel the pain of humanity, to be deeply concerned with the human condition,” Huyen Thanh Thanh confided. Then, with a hint of sadness in her eyes, the petite girl said to me, but also to herself: “I am indebted to literature. Without it, I probably wouldn’t have been able to break free from the sorrows and pains of life.”

As the Hanoi streets lit up, I parted ways with Huyen Thanh Thanh, holding the poetry collection she had just given me. I opened it and read the words Huyen had written on the first page. Instead of a dedication, Huyen wrote my name, then added, "A painting!" I understood that she meant that poetry, or life itself, is like a painting, and even against a dark or "dry" backdrop, "the artist remains passionate." Even if the painting is made up of "a jumble of life's fragments," it still shines with the colors of life, still beautiful and sacred, "without a single flaw."