It is summer in the global North and winter in the global South. Reason enough to bring summer and winter together in August's Literatur.Review and publish previously untranslated or unpublished stories from the North and South of our world.

Phan Thúy Hà (born in 1979 in Hà Tĩnh, now based in Hanoi) is one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Vietnamese creative non-fiction. She is the author of five critically acclaimed books, including Don’t Mention My Name (2017), My House Is on the Other Side of the Hill (2018), I’m My Father’s Daughter (2019), Family (2020), and Excerpts from Their Stories (2021).
Her work delves into the hidden corners of history, giving voice to those who have long been marginalized or silenced in collective memory. With a sharp eye for human truth, Phan Thúy Hà has been widely regarded as one of the most uncompromising and compelling writers of creative non-fiction in Vietnam today.

(Nguyễn Đức Hạnh)

Father could not sleep. His mind was restless. He sat up to count. 

Nine in Xuân Triều. Nine in Tân Dân. Two wards, eighteen executed.

Twenty-five landlords in Thanh Bích. Two hanged themselves. Couldn’t lie still. Father sat up. Counted the whole hamlet, person by person.

Father and mother had been in the farm for some days. Two and a half hectares of sugarcane ready to be harvested. He said: It’s my life’s work. I worked for all this. Now everything’s gone. It’s a disgrace. I can’t live with it. Boil me 21 eggs. Father decided to kill himself.

Mother could not talk him out of it. She cried as the eggs were boiling.

In came my brothers. Dad, we have Lục, who’s fighting the French. We’re supporters of the revolution. We’ll make it through. Don’t do it. Father snapped out of it. He decided not to kill himself.

Our parents had five sons. Three had big houses of their own. Brother Lục got married, then went North to fight in Điện Biên Phủ (1) three days later. I was a carefree teenager.

I’m eighty two. I still remember lying next to mother, hearing her tales of the old days. Mother was a poor servant. Aged sixteen, she stayed with a childless family. One day, as she went to carry water, someone on a boat called out, “That girl there’s going to be my second wife.”  She dumped the water in anger and left for home.

(1) Điện Biên Phủ is a city in Vietnam, best known for the decisive battle in the Indochina War. Here, in 1954, the Vietnamese army defeated the French colonial troops, marking the end of French rule in Indochina and paving the way for Vietnam's independence.

Once home, father came to ask for her hand in marriage. She agreed without hesitation.

People saw a pretty girl marrying an only son. They began gossiping. Why are you keen on a lone bamboo branch? Who will you sit with when the branch breaks?

People did not know how lucky she was.

My ancestors were river folk. Their lives drifted on the Lam River. Each generation was bound by the very same work. We rowed, we fished, and we carried goods to the Phuống market. We were born on the boat, we died on the boat, and we worshipped on the boat. The drifting became unbearable. One day, our grandparents moved ashore.

Once ashore they had no land and no farm. They worked rented fields for a living.

Now married, mother could not live on rented fields. She went on to trade grains. She weighed rice, mill them, and sell them for profit. Typical work for handywomen of the day.

(2) bún (viet.): rice noodles

(3) lá cakes (viet.): Bánh lá, literally meaning "leaf cake", is a category of bánh, or Vietnamese cakes, that consist of a parcel of a variety of rice stuffed with some fillings and wrapped in a leaf or leaves.

(4) sào (viet.): In the ancient measurement system of Vietnam, sào is a unit of area.

(5) mẫu (viet.) is an old unit of area measurement used in some countries in East Asia, such as China and Vietnam.

My grandmother learned to make bún (2). Mother made bún with grandmother and our aunts. She carried the bún to the market for grandmother to peddle. People call it Grandma Nhiêu’s bún. Village folks loved Grandma Nhiêu’s bún. People crowded around the stall, brought life to the market.

She made lá cakes (3). A market favorite. She sold every one she made.

Our family became rich. Father bought farmland with the money.

One sào (4), two sào, five sào. One year, two years, three years. One mẫu (5), two mẫu, a dozen mẫu. Land, garden, buffaloes. Our life was like a dream. Dreamlike because there was always work to do. The moment we step outside we had work to do. The moment we step inside we bumped into grain bins. Rice fields every which way. We worked them outselves. No hired hands.
 

Father woke up before the roosters. He wore a strawhat, a sleeveless shirt, shorts. He led the buffalo to the field, plough on shoulder. Father unyoked the tired buffalo come noon, then led down another to replace it. He kept on plowing. He did the buffalo’s work.

I was born amidst harvest season. Rice, jute, cotton flooded our home. Stacked in piles in our storehouse, our yard. I got athsma from all the dust. I could not even cry. Herbal remedies were no use. As were healing rituals. Mother stuffed me into a basket of rags out on the porch. My condition bettered as the harvest season ended.

Fieldwork done. Father went to the mountains to reclaim land. Mother brought him lunch. Father ate, drank, then worked. Break time is wasted time. Father never stopped working. Father never got sick. 

Father alone reclaimed four hectares. He build a farm on it. One hundred areca trees, one hundred banana trees, one hundred jackfruit trees.

My brothers worked the farm with him.

We hired eight helpers.

Brother Thịnh served in Laos, got sick, and was brought back to Nam Tân in Nam Đàn for treatment. Father went to Nam Tân to visit him. He bought home thirty sugarcane seedlings.

Two years later, a vast sugarcane farm. Come harvest season, father bought longan wood, hired craftsmen to build a sugarcane press. The first season yielded thirty vats of molasses.

Three sào of tobacco, also from Nam Tân. Fifteen racks of sun-dried, fragrant tobacco.

Five sào of jute. Turned into oil right at home.

Over ten thousand cotton plants. With cotton gins, cotton jennies, looms.

Not an inch of wasted land.

In his mind lay a store of ideas.

At home, there were always forty, fifty jars of molasses, jute oil, tobacco, dried betel nuts. Large rice stores, small rice stores. All refilled before they were empty.

My sisters-in-law sold them in the market.

We sold them to traders.

Our house overflowed with agricultural goods. But we only avoided hunger, not poverty. All year long we ate rice with jackfruit and fire-cracker eggplants. Behind our kitchen were a vat of bean paste, four vats of firecracker eggplants, three vats of fermented jackfruit.

I went to secondary school wearing knotted shorts. It came undone as I played soccer. My teacher called me over. Your family’s doing well. Why don't you ask your parents for a pair of trousers? Mother bought me a pair of brown trousers and a shirt. My first set of proper clothing.

Our parenets spent the harvest money on fields and buffaloes. Self-indulgence never crossed their minds. Father went to Vinh for the first time. I was allowed to follow. He looked at the Vinh market with indifference. He bought two water buckets as a gift to brother Tam, then went home. He could not do without work.

(6) áo dài (viet.) is a modernized Vietnamese national garment consisting of a long split tunic worn over silk trousers. It can serve as formalwear for both men and women.

Head of a rich household, father was invited to many death anniversaries. Mother bought him an áo dài (6), wooden clogs, an umbrella. He only wore it to death anniversaries. Once home, he hung them in the closet.

Our family and our servants ate the same meal. We waited for each other before eating. Father’s shirt had more patches than the servants’. While they rested, father stayed bare-chested, put on a straw hat, then raked out rice in the yard to dry. He arranged their marriages once they came of age. Each servants were gifted one pig. One of our servants is still alive. His name is Thanh. He still tells his children and grandchildren: No one was as kind to servants as Mr. Thành. When Mr. Thanh’s father died, my father bought the coffin and helped his family with the funeral.
 

Father was rich but powerless. He protested whenever the village chief bullied the poor. He was once threatened by the village chief. One day, father told people to bury a drowned body that washed ashore. The chief came yelling, baton in hand. Who told you to do this? Who gave you the permission? Father had to bribe 20 silver đồng (7) for him to let off.

(7) đồng (viet.): coin

Father asked brother Tam to write a petition so he could run as village chief. No one voted for him. Father could not read.

He noticed that families with sons serving the French were feared by the chiefs. He sent brother Tam to join the colonial police. He asked an acquaintance to help. Brother Tam rose in the ranks, became a sargeant. His wife was called Madame Tam. Parents were no longer bothered by the chief.

When the Japanese overthrew the French, brother Tam was imprisoned in Vinh. Once the Japanese left, he returned. The new government invited him to be the head of the local militia, for he had military experience. He became a Communist Party member.

My fourth brother, Vượng, became a colonial tirailleur. He also returned, admitted to the Party in 1949. All three brothers were Party members.

Our family held on during the agricultural tax campaign. My parents paid their share, even when the rates increased.

The land reform campaign reached its peak. The entire village was in mourning. My brothers were labeled Nationalists, then put under surveillance. The ancestral house near Thịnh’s became known as the Nationalist Temple. It had once hosted Party meetings and ceremonies. Now they said the whole cell had been Nationalists.

I was stopped on my way back from school. They took the army coat that Lục gave me. They took the trousers that mother bought me. I had nothing on but my shorts. I kneeled until midnight. Where do you keep your gold. I did not know what gold was. My family did not know what gold was.

My grandmother was 92. She stood bowed from morning til noon. Her foot swelled. Her nerves shattered. They summoned mother and father every few days. Once, father was pushed out to the yard while it was pouring. He kneeled in the rain as farmers stood denouncing him. Of the accusers was a man indebted to him. Father was not bothered by denunciations. Father was not bothered by a lady jumping about, screaming until she was hoarse. Only that man’s betrayal stung.

We had not been evicted, but our house was no longer our own. Farmers entered at will and took jars of molasses, oil, betel nuts, tobacco to sell. People carried off tables, chairs, the rice sorting machine. My parents pretended not to see.

Thirty-seven buffaloes. Forty jars of molasses. Rice fields every which way. Everything we built with our own hands, gone. Mother burned with grief. Father offered words of comfort. They took the house, but we still have the farm. The next day, drumbeats and yells filled the air. Seize that bastard’s farm. Seize that bastard’s farm. Mother was forced into the farm to watch over the people’s property. I sneaked off to Thịnh’s in hopes of going to school the next day. Father sat by a fire. The embers had died.

Tomorrow will be our grandfather’s death anniversary. Every year, ten trays would be laid out by the afternoon. We slaughtered cows and pigs, invited the whole village for a meal. Tomorrow would be the main anniversary. We used to prepare twenty trays. Not even a bowl of rice now. Grandmother had gone two days without food.

Father could not stand it. He hanged himself with a steel wire strung between beams.

The son killed his father to silence him!

Brother Thịnh was allowed to see his family. His wife sat mending clothes on the porch. He walked up to her. I’ve decided. There has to be someone who takes the blame. I’ll tell them I killed him. Take good care of each other. She lowered her head and wept.

He came to me and said: I’ll be in jail after I confess. Come stay at my place. Take care of your sister-in-law and your cousins. 

In a few days, the People’s Special Court was to try the case.

Then an order came: 

Case dropped.

The land reform campaign was halted.

Brother Thịnh joined the correction team. He visited the wrongly accused, house by house. We were victims too. My father died. But let’s leave it behind.

Life slowly began to heal. Our farm and fields were made part of the cooperative.

The war against the French ended. Brother Lục went south to fight again. He died in 1965, at the Laos border.

Years have gone by. I miss my father. Nguyễn Đức Thành. A shorebound fisherman. A farmer from Thanh Bích.

About the story

Following the narrative style pioneered by Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich, Phan Thúy Hà conducts in-depth interviews with living witnesses to reconstruct traumatic episodes from Vietnam’s modern history. In Family (2020), she gathers 19 harrowing testimonies from survivors of the Land Reform campaign carried out by the communist movement in northern Vietnam during the 1950s. Focusing on Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh—two of the regions most severely affected by the violent purges against those labeled as landowners or bourgeois—Family is an oral history that confronts a legacy of grief, silence, and enduring psychological scars among ordinary rural Vietnamese families.

About the translator

Vũ Trọng Hiếu is a Hanoi-based writer and translator. His English-language works have appeared in SUSPECT and diaCRITICS. His Vietnamese short story collection, năm hạt vàng (the five golden seeds), was awarded the consolation prize in the inaugural San Hô Books New Writings Award.