ABOUT THANH-THANH
Thanh-Thanh is Mr. Nhuận Xuân Lê 's (poetry) pen name.
His other pseudonyms are: Kiều-Ngọc (prose), Nguyệt-Cầm (drama), Người Thơ (critique), Tú Ngông (satire), etc.
He leads "Xây-Dựng" (To Construct), the literary group that was depicted, owing to its numerous works by various authors, as one of the main branches of the Vietnamese Secular Cultural Tree diagram exhibited at the unique pre-1975 National Cultural Festival in Saigon, capital of the former Republic of Vietnam.
In the United States, he has just published "Cơn Ác-Mộng" (The Nightmare,) the poems he composed while imprisoned by the communists for more than 12 years.
Serving the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, he has just published "Cảnh-Sát-Hóa, Quốc-Sách Yểu-Tử của Việt-Nam Cộng-Ḥa" (The Police Plan, an aborted national policy of the Republic of Vietnam, reprinted as "Việt-Nam Cộng-Ḥa - Cảnh-Sát-Hóa: Quốc-Sách Yểu-Tử") which joins his previous book of memoirs "Về Vùng Chiến-Tuyến" (Return to the Front Line) to reveal more untold causes and potential lessons of the US-backed South Vietnam's fall.
Thanh-Thanh (Nhuan X. Le) began to write poetry in English after his resettlement in the States in 1992. He has just published a collection of English verse translations entitled "Poems by Selected Vietnamese" and has had a lot of pieces printed in some 30 anthologies issued in the USA and the United Kingdom:
Wind in the Night Sky (Owings Mills, Maryland: National Library of Poetry, 1993);
Best New Poems (Parkwille, Maryland: Poets' Guild, 1994);
American Poetry Annual (Baltimore, Maryland: The Amherst Society, 1994);
Outstanding Poets of 1994 (Owings Mills, Maryland: NLP, 1994);
The Sound of Poetry (Owings Mills, Maryland: NLP, 1994);
Best Poems of 1995 (Owings Mills, Maryland: NLP, 1995);
Who's Who in New Poets (New York, New York: Who's Who in New Poets, 1996);
Best Poems of the '90s (Owings Mills, Maryland: NLP, 1996);
Best Poems of 1997 (Owings Mills, Maryland: NLP, 1997);
Outstanding Poets of 1998 (Owings Mills, Maryland: NLP, 1998);
A Celebration of Poets (Owings Mills, Maryland: International Library of Poetry, 1998);
On the Wings of Pegasus (Talent, Oregon: Famous Poets Society, 2000);
A Treasury of Great Poems (Ashland, Oregon: FPS, 2000);
Letters From the Soul (Owings Mills, Maryland: ILP, 2001);
Poetry Magazine (New Jersey: New 1 Publications, March and May 2001);
The Best Poems and Poets of 2001 (Owings Mills, Maryland: ILP, 2001);
New Millennium Poetry (Talent, Oregon: Famous Poets Society, 2002);
The Best Poems and Poets of 2002 (Owings Mills, Maryland: ILP, 2002);
Theatre of the Mind (London: Noble House, 2003);
The Colors of Life (Owings Mills, Maryland: ILP, 2003);
Colours of the Heart (London: Noble House, 2004);
Eternal Portraits (Owings Mills, Maryland: ILP, 2004);
Our 100 Most Famous Poets - the Brief Chronicles of Our Time (Talent, Oregon: FPS, 2004);
Great Poems of the Western World (Talent, Oregon: Famous Poets Society, 2005);
Flowers of Love (Sacramento, California: Vietnamese Poetry Society, 1998-2004);
Labours of Love (London: Noble House, 2005);
WordBridge (Miami, Florida: The Writers Post, 2002-2005);
A Treasury of American Poetry III" (Baltimore, Maryland: League of American Poets, 2007);
Oakland Out Loud (Oakland, California: PEN Center USA - PEN 2007);
Expressions II (Baltimore, Maryland: League of American Poets, 2007);
Expressions III (Baltimore, Maryland: LAP, 2007);
Splash of Verse (Worthington, West Virginia: The Poet Sanctuary, 2007);
Forever Spoken (Owings Mills, Maryland: ILP, 2007;
etc...
He is a member of P.E.N. International (through PEN Center USA) and a lifetime member, in the Hall of Fame, of the International Society of Poets.
You are invited to read "This Land of Promises," a selection of his English poems, and "Poems by Selected Vietnamese," a collection of over 100 Thanh-Thanh's English verse translations from the works by 55 Vietnamese poets and poetesses living in the USA, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, and Vietnam.
ENGLISH