Tin tức
03:01:35 12/12/2025Synopsis
On the Nepalese-Indian border, the author meets Savitri, a young woman tourist guide. As she takes him to the Buddhist sites in Nepal and India, he discovers that Savitri is a skilled story-teller; through her tales the entire life of the Buddha is retold, from his time as Prince Siddhattha to his transformation to the Enlightened One who founded an order that spread throughout the sub-continent.
Savitri’s stories, he finds, are not the usual fare recounted by guides to historical places; instead they mysteriously transport her listeners. As they travel, Savitri’s own life is gradually revealed to the narrator; when she was a little girl, she had been discovered as a Virgin Goddess and enthroned in the Virgin Goddess palace in Nepal. According to tradition, as soon as she had her first period, she was removed from the palace and replaced by another girl. It was then that Savitri transformed herself into a guide-cum-storyteller possessed of a mysterious ability to lead her clients through mist and the darkness.
Her stories all center on a Princess in ancient times, also named Savitri. From her childhood, Princess Savitri had been entranced by the neighboring Prince Siddhattha and pursued him--hoping in vain to make him fall in love with her--for over sixty years, until the master’s demise. Savitri herself was desired by a Brahmin royal priest who tried to destroy her by creating false rumors about her and then hounded her for many years, after she revealed him as a charlatan. Even as she fled him, and formed relationships with various men – businessmen, priests, robbers, courtiers and kings – in her heart, she could only love Siddhattha, once even disguising herself as a monk in order to infiltrate a monastery where she could be close to the master. All the stories about the Savitri who lived in antiquity reveal a connection to the modern Savitri, the incarnation of her sensual ancestress.
THE BUDDHA, SAVITRI AND I offers a unique view of the little known details and humanity of one of the world’s greatest spiritual figures, and vividly weaves together the formative years of Buddhism, ancient and modern India, and the entwined lives and loves and beliefs of men and women who lived over 2500 years ago and today.
This is the first Vietnamese novel which contemporizes the Buddha through an interesting plot and simple style set in a multi-layered structure which effectively broadens the author’s use of time and space.
First published by Da Nang Publishing House, Vietnam, in 2007, the novel was a best-seller in Viet Nam, with over 25,000 copies sold. 430 pages.
Biography of Ho Anh Thai
(Wikipedia)
Ho Anh Thai is one of the best known contemporary writers in Vietnam, is regarded as a literary phenomenon of the post-war generation.
Ho Anh Thai was born in 1960 in Hanoi. He graduated from Hanoi Institute of Diplomacy in 1983. After graduation, he worked as a diplomat and journalist abroad, especially in India. Fluent in several foreign languages, he earned a Ph.D. in Oriental Studies and he is also a lecturer and an Indologist. At present he is working in the Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is the elected president of Hanoi Writers’ Association.
Literary career
Ho Anh Thai first became known as a literary teenage prodigy with the publication of his first stories, and as he matured, became a voice for his generation, with his fresh, youthful style of writing, and works that centered on the lives and adventures of young people and students, highlighting their desire to discover the world. His emblematic works of this period are the novels Men and Vehicle Run in the Moonlight (1986), The Women on the Island (1986), Behind the Red Mist (1989) and the short story collections The Goat Meat Special (1988), Fragment of a Man (1991) etc. Early in the 1990s, after he had studied and worked abroad for some time, including six years in India, Ho Anh Thai published a series of unique, humorous and profound stories about that country: The Man Who Stood on One Leg, The Indian, A Sigh through the Laburnums, The Barter etc.
From the 2000s his published books became more experimental, playful in language and marked by a wry and sardonic tone that was both much appreciated by his growing readership and also considered controversial: the novels The Apocalypse Hotel (2002), The Hanoian Nights (2006) and short stories collections The Narration of 265 Days (2001), Four Paths to the Fun House (2004) etc.
Ho Anh Thai came back to the theme of India with the novel The Buddha, Savitri and I, published in 2007. This is the first Vietnamese novel which contemporizes the Buddha through an interesting plot and simple style set in a multi-layered structure which effectively broadens his use of time and space. Ho Anh Thai’s books have always been best-sellers; part of the phenomenon of his work is that he has a large readership in spite of the way he has eschewed formulaic writing and strives for freshness and originality in form and language.
His fiction has been published abroad, translated into over ten languages, including English, French, Swedish etc.
Main Works
- The Boy Who Waits at the Bus-stop (Chang trai o ben doi xe, 1985)
- Men and Vehicle Run in the Moonlight (Nguoi va xe chay duoi anh trang, 1986)
- The Women on the Island (Nguoi dan ba tren dao, 1986)
- The Searchs (Nhung cuoc kiem tim, 1988)
- Behind the Red Mist (Trong suong hong hien ra, 1989)
- Fragment of a Man (Manh vo cua dan ong, 1991)
- The Man Who Stood on One Leg (Nguoi dung mot chan, 1995)
- The Bastards (Lu con hoang, 1995)
- A Sigh through the Laburnums (Tieng tho dai qua rung kim tuoc, 1998)
- They have Become My Characters (Ho tro thanh nhan vat cua toi, 2000)
- The Narration in 265 Days (Tu su 265 ngay, 2001)
- The Apocalypse Hotel (Coi nguoi rung chuong tan the, 2002)
- Four Paths to the Fun House (Bon loi vao nha cuoi, 2004)
- The Hanoian Nights (Muoi le mot dem, 2006)
- The Buddha, Savitri and I (Duc Phat, nang Savitri va toi, 2007)
- Namaskar! Hail India (Namaskar! Xin chao An Do, 2008)
- Hanoi is Embraced by the Rivers (Huong nao Ha Noi cung song, 2009)
- MHT Means Mouse Hunting Team (SBC la san bat chuot, 2011)
Awards
- Short story prize 1983-1984 of Van Nghe (Literature and Arts) newspaper for The Boy Who Waits at the Bus-stop.
- Best novel award (5-year award, 1986–1990) of the Vietnam Writers’ Association and the Vietnam Trade Union for Men and Vehicle Run in the Moonlight.
- Literature award 1995 of the Union of Literature and Art Associations for The Man Who Stood on One Leg.
- Annual prize 2002 of the Vietnam Writers’ Association for The Narration in 265 Days (refused by author).
External links
Ho Anh Thai:
- http://www.curbstone.org/authdetail.cfm?AuthID=37
- http://www.congrexnetwork.com/dbs/waltic/dyncat.cfm?catid=190#ho
Behind the Red Mist:
- http://www.curbstone.org/bookdetail2.cfm?BookID=49&view=BL
- http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/01/bib/981101.rv154952.html
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