The Tale of Kieu: A Bilingual Edition by Ngo Binh Anh Khoa

Đoạn Trường Tân Thanh (lit. A New Cry from a Broken Heart), also known as Truyện Kiều (lit. The Tale of Kiều), is one of the most beautiful of all the literary gems of Vietnamese poetry. Over the years, there have been many scholars who have researched and studied this masterpiece of Nguyễn Du (1765-1820) and tried to understand the techniques, the imagery, the proverbs, the allusions, the hidden meanings and the genius of a master poet of a nation. As a result, it comes as no surprise that this epic poem about the tragic life of a woman endowed with talents and beauty has been translated into many different languages. This book here is but one English translation among many, and one in which the translator tried to replicate and maintain the traditional Lục Bát (6-8) meter of the Vietnamese literature in the translated contents.