Nguyen Chi Thien, dissident poet International Poetry Award 1985 for Hoa Dia Nguc (Flowers of Hell) while imprisoned in the Communist jails of Vietnam (Hoa Lo: "Hanoi Hilton.") After his release from prison due to international outcry in 1991, Mr. Thien immigrated to the United States in 1995. He wrote prose Hoa Lo Stories in France with an International Parliament of Writers Award in 1998 - 2000. The English translations were published by Yale University Southeast Asia Studies Council in Fall 2007. Mr. Nguyen Chi Thien is an American citizen. He passed away in Orange County, California on October 2, 2012. |
"The Journey of a Thousand Autumns of Nguyen Chi Thien, poet" (English, biography) |
Nguyen Chi Thien's autobiography in English Viet Nam Literature Project Brief Biography (English) pdf Brief Biography (Vietnamese) pdf |
Thien was first imprisoned in the reeducation camps created by Ho Chi Minh in 1961 when he told a high school history class their textbook was Russian propaganda. |
Prison Committee (1960-2010) at the Geneva Book Fair in April 2010. We collected many hundreds of signatures from visitors for petitions claiming liberation of four writers in prison : Vietnamese woman writers Pham Thanh Nghiên and Trân Khai Thanh Thuy (honorary member of English PEN Centre and Swiss Italian PEN Centre) and Chinese writers He Depu (honorary member of Suisse Romand PEN Centre) and Liu Xiaobo (former President of Independent Chinese PEN Centre). Herewith some photos and you may recognize Nguyên Chi Thiên, one of the 50 writers honored by International PEN in celebrating the 50 years of the Writers in Prison Committee. (right) at work in Paris in 1999 with an International Parliament of Writers Fellowship |