Who they were
Born in 1765 to a mandarin family in the crumbling Le era, Nguyen Du lived through dynastic collapse before serving the new Nguyen dynasty — a service tradition describes as reluctant loyalty to a fallen house. In 1813 he led an embassy to China.
What they did
His masterpiece, the Tale of Kieu (Truyen Kieu), runs to 3,254 verses in the six-eight meter, written in the demotic Nom script and reworking a Chinese novel. It follows the virtuous Kieu, who sells herself to save her family and endures fifteen years of trials.
Legacy
The poem is universally memorized and quoted in Vietnam, and folk custom even tells fortunes by opening its pages (boi Kieu). Its heroine’s fate has long been read as an image of the nation’s own trials. UNESCO joined the commemoration of his 250th birth anniversary in 2015; he remains the summit of Vietnamese literature and of the Nom script’s art.