Nguyễn Du

Nguyễn Du ( Vietnamese pronunciation: [ŋʷiə̌nˀ zū], 阮攸; 3 January 1766 – 16 September 1820), courtesy name Tố Như (Vietnamese pronunciation: [tǒ ɲɯ̄], 素如) and art name Thanh Hiên (清軒), was a poet and scholar-official, widely acclaimed as one of the most important writers of Vietnamese literature. Fluent in both Literary Chinese and the Nôm script then used to transcribe the Vietnamese language, Du left behind a prolific body of works that demonstrates a mastery of various poetic forms, from Vietnamese adaptations of Tang-dynasty styles to folk forms such as song thất lục bát and lục bát. His most well-known work is Truyện Kiều (傳翹 The Tale of Kiều, or colloquially Kiều), a novel-in-verse now considered to be the masterpiece of Vietnamese literature.

Born into a noble, well-educated family, Nguyễn Du lived through a tumultuous era in Vietnamese history, in which three consecutive dynasties—the Lê, the Tây Sơn, and the Nguyễn—toppled one another. His poetry expresses a general malaise at the state of things, particularly at the social injustices and the suffering that political turmoil incurred on the laypeople. Despite aligning himself with the Neo-Confucianist Nguyễn dynasty, Du also wrote about rebel figures who dare to defy the imperial order and decried the oppression of women of his time. With the advent of Westernization, modernization and nationalism in French-occupied Vietnam in the early twentieth century, Du was transformed into a national and cultural figure, his works regularly discussed, debated, and reinterpreted under the French occupation, then in North and South Vietnam, then in the Socialist Republic. Today, Du is considered in Vietnamese society to be the "greatest poet of the nation" (đại thi hào dân tộc), and his ancestral house in Hà Tĩnh province is designated a Special National Site.