In the book "Spring Lake", readers can easily recognize the characters of author Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc as contemporary women, from young women to adult women, lovers, mothers, adventurers, rich people, to poor people, hardworking people, resilients, victims...
Each short story takes women as the center, borrowing family background and social context to feel and separate their psychological shells at many ages.The author cleverly puts the characters in the center of the collective: family, parents, siblings, lover and society.
From there, we see the connection between them with life and the changes of life that affect the "powder of emotions" inside them.
Selected from about 80 short stories published in magazines from before 1975 to present, the book "Spring Lake" stands out with three main voices: the voice of a woman, the voice of a Southern person, the voice of a screenwriter - all of which exude the very "female" voice of Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc - soft, gentle but also very individual and strong.The short story Trai Nghi qua uses symbolic images and language rich in thinking, expressing the depth of human philosophy."The leaves of the tree" bring the image of fragility, smallness and inter finitude in life.In each page of the book, the lyrics are self-conscious, creating a deep inner space, where the character faces himself and his own choices.
"We must be patient to be brave enough to live a life by the leaves" - the gentle line evokes many reflections. Reading each word slowly, we feel the grief, regret but also the sacredness of the silent sacrifice that sometimes people do not recognize or do not have enough courage to appreciate.
Unlike previous collections, Spring Lake has a pair of author's self-taught lines at the beginning of each story, both leading and suggesting, helping readers better understand Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc.
Not only rich in emotions through each sentence, readers also enjoyed 35 oil paintings by artist Dinh Truong Chinh - the youngest son of famous painter Dinh Cuong.The works revolve around the theme of women and the quiet slices of life, creating a unique combination of literature and art, bringing a new and profound experience to readers.
Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc is a stage director, writer, lecturer, artist, and screenwriter. She was born in 2019, in Ba Ria - Vung Tau province, graduated from Ho Chi Minh City University of Theatre and Cinema in 1980, and was a former lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City University of Theatre and Cinema.
She has written over 30 plays and written over 70 traditional and contemporary plays, hundreds of scripts for TV series and many research works on stage arts and canal.
