Audiences Sitting in the Dark , published by Kim Dong Publishing House in mid-June, is considered a bold experiment by young author Hien Trang.
The book consists of 12 stories, sharing the same motif of famous characters in Vietnamese literature (most of which have excerpts in the general literature curriculum) such as: Chi Pheo, Chi Dau, Xuan Toc Do, Huan Cao, Truong Ba...
Hien Trang wrote the story collection with the concept: "Literature can go through countless lives, continuously giving birth to meaning, continuously breathing evenly, even when the author has passed away."
She believes that it is the people sitting in the dark in the audience, watching the main characters in the light of the stage, with their emotions of laughter and tears, their explanations and understandings that add vitality to literature, helping fictional characters continue to live other lives.
Cover of the book "The Audience Sitting in the Dark" (Photo: Kim Dong Publishing House).
Famous characters are told through characters not in the original work: Chi Pheo is told through the words of a grandson who is cursed by his family ( The Curse of Vu Dai Village ); Xuan Toc Do is told through the words of the King of Hell ( Xuan Toc Do plays a trick on the King of Hell).
Two children through the words of a night train passenger ( Children born from the night ); Truong Ba through the story of a butcher's soul ( The moment of resurrection of the Butcher's soul ); the portrait of death row prisoner Huan Cao appears through the observation of the executioner who beheaded him ( The headless death row prisoner)...
According to the author, literature has a huge drawer of raw materials for derivative creations. Even master storytellers sometimes take from it ready-made products to continue chiseling.
That is also the reason for the birth of The Audience Sitting in the Dark - a collection of familiar characters of Vietnamese literature, appearing with a new look, new perspective and new thoughts.
Hien Trang said that the most difficult thing when writing this book was choosing the style for each story.
"We definitely cannot imitate Nam Cao's story about Chi Pheo and teacher Thu; we cannot imitate To Hoai's story about Mi; and we certainly cannot imitate Nguyen Tuan's story about Huan Cao. Because then, what's the point of writing more?" she said.
Therefore, she chose to "move to a far corner", until she could see Chí Phèo, Mị or Chi Dậu through the South American magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez; see the silence and loneliness of the two children through the modernism of wanderers like Gustave Flaubert.
Later, she saw the cunning of Xuan Toc Do through the satire of Mikhail Bulgakov; saw Huan Cao through the horror fantasy of gothic literature and surrealism.
Hien Trang, 30 years old, lives and writes in Hanoi, is the third prize winner of the sixth Literature Contest for 20-year-olds with the short story collection Wandering Dream on the Withered Grass Field.
Some published books: The Nude Girl and the Red Violin (2015); Lost Youth and My Books (2016); A Dream of Wandering in the Withered Grass (2018); Under the Night Eaves, Strangers (2020); Chopin Disappears (2022); Why Do We Love...(2022).
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