The Tale of Kieu

Blurb

The Tale of Kiều is an epic poem in Vietnamese written by Nguyễn Du, and is widely regarded as the most significant work of Vietnamese literature. The original title in Vietnamese is Đoạn Trường Tân Thanh, but it is better known as Truyện Kiều.
In 3,254 verses, written in lục bát meter, the poem recounts the life, trials and tribulations of Thúy Kiều, a beautiful and talented young woman, who has to sacrifice herself to save her family. To save her father and younger brother from prison, she sells herself into marriage with a middle-aged man, not knowing that he is a pimp, and is forced into prostitution. Modern interpretations vary, some post-colonial writers have interpreted it as a critical, allegorical reflection on the rise of the Nguyễn dynasty.
Nguyễn Du made use of the plot of a seventeenth-century Chinese novel, Jin Yun Qiao, known in Vietnamese of Chinese characters as Kim Vân Kiều. The Chinese original written by an otherwise unknown writer under the pseudonym Qingxin Cairen in classical Chinese was a straightforward romance but Nguyễn Du chose it to convey the social and political upheavals at the end of the 18th century in Vietnam.