Five-volume Goc San Va Khoang Troi (The Yard Corner and Sky Interval) by Tran Dang Khoa with illustrations The book by Tran Dang Khoa comprises about 60 poems, divided into five shortvolumes: Khi Me Vang Nha (When Mother Is Away fromHome); Trang Sang San Nha Em (The Moon Shines on My House); MangBien Ve Que (Bringing the Sea to the Coutryside); Hat Gao Lang Ta (Rice Seed in OurVillage) and Con Buom Vang (Yellow Butterfly).
The book was illustrated by five young artist teams, includingWazza Pink and NHO.A; Vuon Studio; Pham Quang Phuc; Killien Huynh and PhungNguyen Quang and Nho Huy.
Wazza Pink and NHO.A won the Grand Prize of the Samsung Kids Time Awardcompetition held early last year in Singapore; Killien Huynh and Phung NguyenQuang took first prize at The Scholastic Picture Book Award - a jointinitiative of the National Book Development Council of Singapore and ScholasticAsia.
"We encourage all the artists to express their feelings as they read thepoems. It is necessary before they begin to illustrate them," said NguyenQuang Vinh from the Huy Hoang Book House. "All the artists were born inthe 1990s. We chose them because of their new and fresh feelings about popularpoetry."
The artists’ perspective is also shaped by the fact that they did notexperience rural life in times of war, which some of the poems describe.
"Sometimes we cannot imagine exactly what the poet describes," saidartist Nanh from Vuon Studio team. "We have to draw daily life in thenorth, which we have never seen."
"It is very surprising for me. I’m very happy to see beautifulillustrations by young artists," said poet Khoa. "Each illustrationis an independent artwork blowing a new breath into my poems. I don’t knowwhether their paintings illustrate my works or my poems illustrate thepaintings".
"I like two illustrations for poems entitled NuaDem Tinh Giac (Awakeningat Midnight) and Trang Sang San Nha Em (MoonShines over My Yard) the most. They are creative andvivid. The book is very beautiful with poems printed on the paintings,"said the poet.
Poet Khoa is a phenomenon of Vietnam’s contemporary poetry. Born in 1958, hewas known as a child prodigy. GocSan Và Khoang Troi is his first collection of poems and wasprinted when he was ten years old. Vietnamese people born in the 1960s andearly 1970s learned his poems by heart.
This is not first illustration of the poems of GocSan Và Khoang Troi. In 2011, about ten poems were selected alongwith other poems by Khoa in a bilingual Vietnamese-French book was illusatratedby French artist Dominique De Miscault for publication in France.
The poet is currently working for Voice of Vietnam (VOV) as director of VOVTelevision. His books, such as Chan Dung Và Doi Thoai (Portrait and Dialogue) and Dao Chim (Submerged Island) have a following ofdifferent generations.
Khoa was awarded the State Prize in Literature and Arts in 2001.-VNA
VNA
