Bestseller in Vietnam

From the Korean Times. Vietnamese writer Nguyen Ngoc Tu is only 31 years old and has taken Vietnam by storm by selling 80,000 copies of her latest novel The Endless Fields.

The Endless Fields received Vietnam's most prestigious literary prize, the Vietnam Writers' Association award for fiction in 2006, has been translated and published in Korea. 'In the book, she steps away from Vietnam's routine subject of war, and touches on the life of people living in the poverty-stricken countryside of Vietnam.'

'Although the wounds of war remain, I wanted to move on and write about a new subject. Still, although war may not appear directly, its
presence is no doubt felt throughout this story as well,'' Nguyen is reported to have said.

Upon its release in Vietnam the report says, 'At one point, criticism towards the novel was so harsh that it lead to Nguyen being summoned to the ideological education committee in Ca Mau Province for self-criticism ...'

For her next project, 'Nguyen ... plans on writing a novel related to the rising number of inter-racial marriages involving young Vietnamese women.'

'There's no problem with intercultural marriages based on love, but when it is something that is purchased on conditions other than love, that is saddening. I definitely want to write on this,'' she said.

The author has only attended school up to the 10th grade, growing up in a poor household, but enjoys reading. 'Literature is not something that you are taught, but it can be picked up by reading many books ...'

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/art/2007/11/142_11381.html