Thai Ba Loi – A writer with the soul of a soldier
After traveling 500km, we arrived in Da Nang as promised by writer Thai Ba Loi. The city welcomed us with blue sea and bright yellow sunshine. Following his instructions, we found a simple two-story house with a white facade, with a few green cycads hanging down. The man in his 80s in front of me looked neat and serious, not at all like what I had imagined all along the way here...
Content:Cherry -Technique:Hong Toai• October 22, 2025
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After traveling 500km, we arrived in Da Nang as promised by writer Thai Ba Loi. The city welcomed us with blue sea and bright yellow sunshine. Following his instructions, we found a simple two-story house with a white facade, with a few green vines hanging down. The man in his 80s in front of me looked neat and serious, not at all like what I had imagined along the way here. But the more we talked, the more attracted we were by the stories he told: humorous, witty, yet rich in details and images. Truly the stories of a writer.
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"I dropped out of medical school and went to war". Writer Thai Ba Loi began his story with us like that. In 1965, when he was just 20 years old, he joined the army, went to the battlefield and became a doctor, the leader of a forward surgical team. The young doctor spent more than 5 years in the most fierce battlefields, such as Route 9 Southern Laos, Khe Sanh, Dong Ha, and especially fierce Thua Thien Hue during the Mau Than General Offensive and Uprising in 1968.
In 1971, he was transferred to the Literature Department of the Political Department of Military Region V and was able to do his favorite job of writing and reporting on the front lines. The stories he told were not about the smoke and fire of the battlefield, nor about hardships and suffering, but had a very unique wit that surprised the audience.
When I asked: “What do you remember most in your early days as a front-line journalist?"He replied:“The first time I went to the battlefield, not as a soldier but as a writer and journalist in Que Son, Quang Nam (old). In that battle, our troops fought for a long time but could not capture the Cam Doi base in Que Son. My most memorable memory was the first time I went to work as a war reporter but the battle was not won.”
Life is like that, but his writing is full of thoughts and worries. Having fought in the fiercest battlefields, most of Thai Ba Loi's works are about war and people in war, especially soldiers. He shared that he was lucky to survive, so he had to write to repay his comrades, so that the next generation could better understand the historical days that many Vietnamese people had gone through.
Readers began to know Thai Ba Loi from short stories.The two men returned to the regiment., written in 1976. When the country's literature was immersed in an epic, praising atmosphere, Thai Ba Loi presented a painful but realistic, and at the same time, warning view. That in war, there are not only bad enemies and our soldiers are always good. There are still opportunistic, cunning people, and those calculations are more obvious when entering peacetime. His pen courageously wrote about the war with a multi-dimensional view as it is.
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The short story "Two people return to the regiment" opened the door to a series of other issues of war for later writers to gradually approach. Later, writer Bao Ninh, author of the novel "The Sorrow of War" also said: Thai Ba Loi is a very brave writer, daring to think, daring to look, daring to write about things that people often hide or do not want to mention when talking about war.
Poet Nguyen Kim Huy - Chairman of the Danang Writers Association
Until his later works, the human nature when going through war is still what worries him the most. For him, war is a special situation, but it is the place where people reveal their true nature. In Thai Ba Loi's works, people going through war do not appear in a halo, but with all the countless sacrifices and hardships, but also very complicated with countless light and dark aspects. As he wrote:“The good and the bad, the traitors and the loyal, in one man who was sometimes cowardly and sometimes brave… They lived through days when circumstances forced them to give their all to survive”.(Excerpt:Who were they contemporaries of?). Without embellishment or exaggeration, he was always aware that he had to write the truth, but never hurt what was sacred to soldiers and to humanity.
Talking about the literature of writer Thai Ba Loi, writer Nguyen Quang Thieu - Chairman of the Vietnam Writers Association commented:“Thai Ba Loi has devoted himself to what literature had rarely mentioned before, which is human destiny, human aspirations, what is deep in the human soul, especially the problems that people have to face and are challenged by from the war to after the war.”
Writer Thai Ba Loi has introduced to readers 3 collections of short stories and 6 novels, published sporadically from 1978 to 2010, receiving many awards such as the Army Literature Magazine Short Story Award in 1974, the Vietnam Writers Association Award in 1983, the A Prize of the National Committee of the Vietnam Union of Literature and Arts Associations in 2004, the B Prize of the Da Nang City Literature and Arts Award in 2004, the State Prize for Literature and Arts in 2012 with two novels.Who were they contemporaries of?andRestoration, 2013 Southeast Asian Literature Award for novelEnlightened Master.
Born in Nghe An, but his life was attached to the region V, Quang Nam, Da Nang, so the names of people, places, and cultural features of the region V appeared strongly in his works. In the second half of his writing career, he had novels dedicated to this land such asEnlightened Master, tells the story of Lord Nguyen Hoang going to open up new land, orDanang Story, writing about the people of modern Da Nang. Those works have helped today's young generation understand more about the cultural and historical depth of this land.
But wherever he is, whatever he does, he still has a complete love for Nghe An, the land that gave birth to him and raised him to be a man. His writing is sincere, simple but profound, full of Nghe An spirit. Talking about Quynh Luu, about his hometown Thoi village, the land that gave birth to famous writers and poets in modern Vietnamese literature, he still makes us laugh with his familiar witty saying: "My feelings for my homeland are very strong, but unfortunately for me, around my village there are too many good writers like writer Bui Hien, writer Nguyen Minh Chau. I still haven’t found a way to write differently, better than what they have written…”.
The last time we contacted, he happily introduced me to an article in the book.Literary portraitto be published soon. The article shows his true voice of telling everyday stories, witty and lively. And we are waiting for his new work with great excitement, because turning each page of the book is like sitting with him by the Han River on an afternoon in Da Nang, listening to him tell the everyday stories of famous Vietnamese writers and artists.
.jpg "GS.TS Mạch Quang Thắng - Hành trình theo chân Bác")
