From "Memories of the Soldiers" to "The Story of Three Soldiers"
Born in 1995 in Hung Yen, writer Vu Cong Chien was an electronics engineer, working at the Vietnam Institute of Science and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. But the special thing in his life is the time he enlisted in the army, directly participating in fighting in Truong Son, Southern Laos and the Central Highlands. That experience became a valuable material for later literary composition.
In 2016, he released "Memories of the Soldier" - a novel - self- novel that received the First and Outstanding Work Award from the Hanoi Writers' Association. In 2019, the book "Kim Lien Mot Thoi" was nominated for the Bui Xuan Phai Award - For the Love of Hanoi. With more than 5 works published in less than 10 years, writer Vu Cong Chien proves the perseverance of a writer who is not just an authoritative writer but persistent and responsible for the past.
If "Memories of the Soldier" focuses on personal experiences, "The Story of Three Soldiers" takes the author back as a witness, recounting the fate of his teammates - ordinary soldiers who went through war.
Daily story in war
The novel follows Thao - a rookie in the suburbs of Hanoi - from the day he enlisted in the army to the day he liberated Saigon in the Ho Chi Minh campaign. In the same unit, he experienced the battles in Laos and the Central Highlands, witnessed his teammates sacrificing, experiencing hunger and disease.
The special feature of the work lies in the way it recreates the daily life of soldiers. In that world, death can come from enemy bullets, but it can also come from poisoned forest mushroom pots. The simple happiness is just eating a few crab rolls of rice and cooking a pot of wild vegetable soup in the rainy season. The seemingly small details depict the fierceness of the battlefield and the strong teammateship.
Not only stopping at the front, the work also reflects the shocks from the back: Cooperation movement, subsidy mechanism, historicalism... through letters sent to the frontline.
Simple, realistic storytelling
According to Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Xuan Thach, "The Story of Three Soldiers" retains Vu Cong Chien's simple, linear writing style, like "a painting that directly depicts life". Not fussy in technique, the work creates a space to go back to the past for readers to observe many small details, instead of just being swept away by a tragic climax.
He commented: Vu Cong Chien wrote as a person who told a story of the past through the literature of the past, but without teaching or formula. Those are stories worth listening to if you want to know about the past.
Compared to many socialist realistic novels before Doi Moi, this work is both heritable and liberating in its approach: Not only illustrating political slogans, but also going deep into human fate and the diversity of reality.
Works about ordinary people
Character in "The Story of Three Soldiers" has diverse backgrounds: Some used to be pigs to breed, some finished 10th grade and worked in many jobs, some had families, some had no love... When the war passed, they returned to their daily lives - working, starting a family, raising children.
Through the conclusion, the author emphasized that war is just a special chapter in the lives of ordinary people. After life and death, they are more comfortable with life, knowing how to appreciate small things.
"The Story of Three Soldiers" is not only a literary work, but also a memoir, helping today's readers understand more about a historical period. It reminds us that behind the glorious pages of history is fate, the lives of ordinary soldiers.
With a simple and persistent voice, writer Vu Cong Chien continues to affirm his own position: Not following the trend, but telling stories that need to be told, as a debt to his teammates and the past.
