Nguyen Cong Hoan

Born Mar. 6, 1903, in the village of Songkau, Hung Yen Province. Vietnamese writer. Member of the Workers’ Party of Vietnam since 1948.

Nguyen Cong Hoan graduated from a pedagogical school in 1926 and worked as a teacher until 1945. He fought in the Vietnamese people’s War of Resistance (1945–54). Nguyen Cong Hoan is a master of the satirical short story, for example, his collection The Actor Tu Ben (1935). Last Step (1938), one of the first realist novels in Vietnam, describes the difficult life of the Vietnamese peasant.

Nguyen Cong Hoan’s postrevolutionary novels, including Half-shade and Half-light (1956), Babel (1961), and A Pile of Old Rubbish (1971), present a satirical portrayal of the ruling clique in feudal and colonial Vietnam. He is the author of a book of memoirs, My Life in Literature (1971).

Since 1957, Nguyen Cong Hoan has been one of the directors of the Writers’ Union of Vietnam.