WRITERS from Vietnam

Top 8

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Vietnamese Writers of all time. This list of famous Vietnamese Writers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Marguerite Duras (1914 - 1996)

With an HPI of 70.72, Marguerite Duras is the most famous Vietnamese Writer.  Her biography has been translated into 56 different languages on wikipedia.

Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (French pronunciation: [maʁɡ(ə)ʁit ʒɛʁmɛn maʁi dɔnadjø], 4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras (French: [maʁɡ(ə)ʁit dyʁas]), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film Hiroshima mon amour (1959) earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards.

2. Phan Bội Châu (1867 - 1940)

With an HPI of 55.64, Phan Bội Châu is the 2nd most famous Vietnamese Writer.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Phan Bội Châu (Vietnamese: [faːn ɓôjˀ cəw]; 26 December 1867 – 29 October 1940), born Phan Văn San, courtesy name Hải Thụ (later changed to Sào Nam), was a pioneer of 20th century Vietnamese nationalism. In 1904, he formed a revolutionary organization called Duy Tân Hội ("Modernization Association"). From 1905 to 1908, he lived in Japan where he wrote political tracts calling for the independence of Vietnam from French colonial rule. After being forced to leave Japan, he moved to China where he was influenced by Sun Yat-sen and gradually shifted his political position from monarchist to democrat. In 1912, he disbanded Duy Tân Hội to form Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội (“Vietnamese Restoration League”), modeled after Sun Yat-sen's republican party.: 149–151  In 1925, French agents seized him in Shanghai. He was convicted of treason and spent the rest of his life under house arrest in Huế.

3. Nguyễn Du (1765 - 1820)

With an HPI of 55.10, Nguyễn Du is the 3rd most famous Vietnamese Writer.  His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

Nguyễn Du (阮攸; 3 January 1766 – 16 September 1820), courtesy name Tố Như (素如) and art name Thanh Hiên (清軒), is a celebrated Vietnamese poet and musician. He is most known for writing the epic poem The Tale of Kiều.

4. Hồ Xuân Hương (1772 - 1822)

With an HPI of 51.94, Hồ Xuân Hương is the 4th most famous Vietnamese Writer.  Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Hồ Xuân Hương (胡春香; 1772–1822) was a Vietnamese poet born at the end of the Lê dynasty. She grew up in an era of political and social turmoil – the time of the Tây Sơn rebellion and a three-decade civil war that led to Nguyễn Ánh seizing power as Emperor Gia Long and starting the Nguyễn dynasty. She wrote poetry using chữ Nôm (Southern Script), which adapts Chinese characters for writing demotic Vietnamese. She is considered to be one of Vietnam's greatest classical poets. Xuân Diệu, a prominent modern poet, dubbed her "The Queen of Nôm poetry".

5. Phan Thi Kim Phuc (b. 1963)

With an HPI of 51.51, Phan Thi Kim Phuc is the 5th most famous Vietnamese Writer.  Her biography has been translated into 39 different languages.

Phan Thị Kim Phúc (Vietnamese pronunciation: [faːŋ tʰɪ̂ˀ kim fúk͡p̚]; born April 6, 1963), referred to informally as the girl in the picture and the napalm girl, is a South Vietnamese-born Canadian woman best known as the nine-year-old child depicted in the Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph, titled The Terror of War, taken at Trảng Bàng during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972. The image, taken for the Associated Press by a 21-year-old Vietnamese-American photographer named Nick Ut, shows her at nine years of age running naked on a road after being severely burned on her back by a South Vietnamese napalm attack. She later founded the Kim Phúc Foundation International to provide aid to child victims of war.

6. Dương Thu Hương (b. 1947)

With an HPI of 49.37, Dương Thu Hương is the 6th most famous Vietnamese Writer.  Her biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Dương Thu Hương (born 1947) is a Vietnamese author and political dissident.

7. Kim Thúy (b. 1968)

With an HPI of 39.34, Kim Thúy is the 7th most famous Vietnamese Writer.  Her biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Kim Thúy Ly Thanh, CM CQ (born 1968 in Saigon, South Vietnam) is a Vietnamese-born Canadian writer. Kim Thúy was born in Vietnam in 1968. At the age of 10 she left Vietnam along with a wave of refugees commonly referred to in the media as “the boat people” and settled with her family in Quebec, Canada. A graduate in translation and law, she has worked as a seamstress, interpreter, lawyer, and restaurant owner. The author has received many awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2010, and was one of the top 4 finalists of the Alternative Nobel Prize in 2018. Her books have sold more than 850,000 copies around the world and have been translated into 31 languages and distributed across 43 countries and territories. Kim Thúy lives in Montreal where she devotes her time to writing.

8. Viet Thanh Nguyen (b. 1971)

With an HPI of 34.30, Viet Thanh Nguyen is the 8th most famous Vietnamese Writer.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Viet Thanh Nguyen (Vietnamese: Nguyễn Thanh Việt; born March 13, 1971) is a South Vietnamese-born American professor and novelist. He is the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Viet's debut novel, The Sympathizer, won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and many other accolades. He was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017. Viet is a regular contributor, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, covering immigration, refugees, politics, culture, and Southeast Asia. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2020 was elected as the first Asian American member of the Pulitzer Prize Board in its 103-year-history. In the teaching field, in 2023, Viet is also the first Asian American to headline the Charles Eliot Norton Lecture Series at Harvard University.