The Tale of Kiều: A New Cry of Heart-Rending Pain

by Du Nguyen, Binh Nguyen (Translator), Dusse Bui (Illustrator)

A poetic classic that has captivated readers for generations is given a new life in Nguyễn Bình’s translation.

The Tale of Kiều by Nguyễn Du is a timeless poetic masterpiece, revered as one of the greatest classics in Vietnamese literature. Through Thuý Kiều's years of wandering as a woman in 16th-century China, the epic delves into the complexities of human nature, gender, and sexuality.

With a new translation that is attentive to the folksy rhythms of the original form, and complete with detailed notes that position the original in its cultural context—The Tale of Kiều will appeal to lovers of a rich story, its couplets lingering and speaking to the most intimate of our human emotions.

309 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 27, 2025

Reviews

[Xuân Thùy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What makes this English version of Truyện Kiều stand out are the notes and commentary given throughout. It provides an impressive amount of historical, cultural, and linguistic context, giving you a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the poem. Line 755 has one of my favorite notes (see below).

At first I wasn’t sure about Nguyễn Bình’s choice to use archaic English, mainly because I'm not familiar with many of those words and had to stop sometimes to look them up. For example, this line completely stumped me at first: “With parents' toils unguerdon'd, e'en a whit?” That said, I quickly grew to appreciate their choices, especially their decision to render the poem in heroic couplets. It made the story much more engaging.

If you only plan to read a translated version of Truyện Kiều once, I'd recommend this version!

Original: Ôi Kim lang, hỡi Kim lang ('O Kim lang, alas, Kim lang'). Most of the line has the ngang tone, which feels like a 'flatlining' tone that neither goes up or down (this quality is reflected in the name itself: ngang means 'horizontal' or 'level'). The only exception is in the fourth syllable hỡi, which is of the trắc tonal type, as per the rules of the poetic form (see the introduction for a more detailed discussion). However, note that the hỡi didn't seem to be put there merely to satisfy the form rules, because in all dialects of Vietnamese, the tone of hỡi is not articulated like a linear progression of sounds but sounds rougher. In northern dialects, especially, this tone is pronounced with a glottal stop in the middle as if somebody is hiccupping. This hiccup, combined with the near monotony of the five remaining syllables, makes the entire line read like somebody bursting into tears and choking on their own words at the fourth syllable. Such an effect is consistent with the semantic meaning of the line itself, which is just Kiêu crying out Kim's name in desperation.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was awesome. Stoked to be alive at a time when epic poems are still being translated into heroic couplets. The footnotes were as entertaining as the poem, they felt like taking an intro class in East Asian poetic symbolism from a really cool professor. The references to so many works from Western and East Asian canon in the footnotes also make you want to read deeper in both traditions and then reread this impressive work of scholarship.

[Nguyễn Bình · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm the translator so of course I'll give this 5 stars lol. Give it like 2 years, maybe I'll start hating it in retrospect. Still riding the coattails of feeling accomplished at the moment.

Actually no. After spending 5 years on this book, I do find it insufferable nowadays.

[Bear · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tale of Kieu is one of my favorite Viet books, so reading a translated version where each verse is analyzed in depth is so interesting.