Phan Nhật Nam, a Soldier Who Holds a Pen

Though unknown to mainstream American readers, including those familiar with the copious literature on the Vietnam War, Phan Nhật Nam is regarded in southern Vietnam as one of the most prominent war writers of his time. Between 1969 and 1975, his works were very well known and widely read. Upon Reunification in 1975, his oeuvre was banned by the communist state, but copies of his works were still circulated clandestinely. Though Phan Nhật Nam was highly prolific—and his works were republished by the first waves of overseas Vietnamese who settled in the United States and elsewhere after 1975—his nonfiction and literary publications have largely not been translated. Writer Nguyễn Bá Trạc remembers Phan Nhật Nam’s books being reprinted in Vietnamese in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Western Europe alongside best-selling kung fu novels—a testament to the popularity of war reportage that was written, as Nguyễn Bá Trạc notes, “with blood and tears.”With the anniversary of the fall of Sài Gòn approaching next year, we are enthusiastic about the opportunity to re-publicize the work of this important and influential author. In this forum, we feature an in-depth interview with Phan Nhật Nam and three short translations of his work. “The Bare Breast” and “Contemplating Our Loss of Sovereignty” come from Dọc đường số 1 [Along Highway One, 1970]. The translation of Phan Nhật Nam’s “Memory of April 30, 1975” is a recent revision by the author of “Ngày 30 tháng 4, lần thật chết với quê hương” [April 30—A Real Death in the Homeland], originally published in Phận người vận nước [The Fate of the People and Destiny of the Country, 2013].Born in 1943, Phan Nhật Nam grew up in Huế. His parents joined the communist-led Việt Minh in the late 1940s and were assigned tasks in urban areas. In 1950, when Phan Nhật Nam was seven, his father was ordered to leave Huế for an unknown Việt Minh base and then was later detailed to Hải Phòng. Phan Nhật Nam lost contact with his father. In 1979, when Phan Nhật Nam was held at a reeducation camp in Lam Sơn (Thanh Hóa Province), his father paid a visit. This visit, which lasted just minutes, was the only significant exchange that Phan Nhật Nam had with his father after 1950. It would be their last encounter.Phan Nhật Nam was raised by his mother and spent his childhood and young adulthood in poverty. Soon after his father left home, his mother took him and his sisters to Đà Nẵng, where he later attended Phan Châu Trinh High School. He made many friends who later influenced his life—including the communist student activist Phan Duy Nhân and Republic of Vietnam (RVN) writers Nguyễn Bá Trạc and Vũ Ngự Chiêu.Phan Nhật Nam’s mother died in January 1961, when he was only 17. To support his younger sisters, he decided to join the army and was admitted to the Đà Lạt National Military Academy later that year. Upon graduation in 1963, he joined the Airborne Division and served for the next twelve years until the fall of Sài Gòn. In 1973, he worked in the Central Four-Party Joint Military Commission and the Central Two-Party Joint Military Commission to negotiate and monitor the return of prisoners of war during the Paris Peace Accords negotiations.After the fall of Sài Gòn, Phan Nhật Nam was interred in various prisons and reeducation camps for fourteen years, eight of which he spent in solitary confinement.1 Upon his release in 1989, he was placed under surveillance until he left Vietnam for the United States in 1993.Between 1969 and 1974, while still enlisted in the armed forces, he published four major works of military memoir/reportage: Dấu binh lửa [The Flaming Wound of War, 1969], Dọc đường số 1, Mùa hè đỏ lửa [Summer of Raging Fire, 1972], and Tù binh và hòa bình [Peace and Prisoners of War, 1974], as well as two novellas: Ải trần gian [Hell on Earth, 1970] and Dựa lưng nỗi chết [Leaning on Death, 1973].2In 1981, while Phan Nhật Nam was in a reeducation camp, the Committee Fighting for the Freedom of Vietnamese Writers and Artists [Ủy ban Tranh đấu Đòi Tự do cho Văn Nghệ Sĩ Việt Nam] published his secret prison writings in a collection called Bút kháng [The Pen of Resistance]. The book included two short essays by Đào Vũ Anh Hùng and Trần Tam Tiệp, which described Phan Nhật Nam’s experiences of war and incarceration and presented a short introduction of his prison writing, followed by Phan Nhật Nam’s letters to his family and some poems.Between 1993 and 2013, Phan Nhật Nam published at least six prose collections and a book of poetry: Những chuyện cần kể lại [Stories That Must Be Told, 1995], Đường trường xa xăm [A Far and Long Road, 1995], Đêm tận thất thanh [Night Ends with a Fearful Scream, 1997], Mùa đông giữ lửa [Keeping the Fire Lit in Winter, 1997], Những cột trụ chống giữ quê hương [The Pillars Supporting the Country, 2003], Phận người vận nước, and Chuyện dọc đường [Stories Told along the Road, 2013]. In addition, Phan Nhật Nam has published dozens of news articles and essays on war.Despite this rich body of work, Phan Nhật Nam does not see himself as a writer, insisting that he is simply “a soldier who holds a pen.” Yet according to the prominent RVN writer Ngô Thế Vinh, “Phan Nhật Nam’s pre-1975 war reportage was the best in both North and South Vietnam.”3 Đỗ Trường, a writer born and raised in northern Vietnam, wrote, “If I must choose the two best representatives for poetry and prose about the war in the Republic of Vietnam, poet Tô Thùy Yên and writer Phan Nhật Nam come to my mind immediately.”4Phan Nhật Nam is perhaps best known for Mùa hè đỏ lửa, a collection of reportage on the horrors of the 1972 battles often known outside of Vietnam as the Easter Offensive. In the Republic of Vietnam and later in Vietnam, this period is often called the Summer of Raging Flames, after the title of Phan Nhật Nam’s book—a detail that suggests the influence of his writing on the Vietnamese public mind.Another of Phan Nhật Nam’s masterpieces, Tù binh và hòa bình, was published in October 1974—only a few months before the fall of Sài Gòn. The book documents Phan Nhật Nam’s experience as a member of the RVN team during the Paris Peace Accords negotiations. He expresses anger at North Vietnam’s obvious lies and frustration regarding the concessions the RVN made under pressure. And he laments the impossibilities of reconciliation with the ruthless communist regime.Phan Nhật Nam’s two early works, Dấu binh lửa and Dọc đường số 1, should be seen as truly ground-breaking works of war reportage. As he explains in Dọc đường số 1, he wanted to write about war and soldiers “unlike any other writer.” Even to readers in the present day, Phan Nhật Nam’s work is remarkable for its raw expression of anger, graphic depictions of suffering, and occasional startling bursts of lyricism and tenderness. In these two books, Phan Nhật Nam stands as one of Vietnam’s most candid nonfiction writers of all time, depicting himself and his experience in often unflattering terms.Dấu binh lửa chronicles Phan Nhật Nam’s years in the army from 1963 to 1969. It conveys the mental deterioration of a young soldier learning how to use drinking, smoking, and sex to deal with fear and war trauma. It shows a Phan Nhật Nam capable of good deeds, but also capable of rage and violence. In one passage, he describes forcing a sex worker to have sex standing up and punching her when she refused. In another episode, he describes forcing soldiers to complete a brutally harsh training routine. Throughout, Dấu binh lửa depicts the tormented soul of a young man thrown into war.Phan Nhật Nam witnessed the death of many fellow soldiers after the battle of Bình Xoài in 1965. In Dấu binh lửa, he wrote, “After a week of dealing with the dead, my body melted away in a deep coma filled with the breath of death. A storm welled up in my heart. The corpses haunted me to a strange extent. Even in my sleep, there was no peace. I screamed, cried, and smashed things in a trance. And the sobriety was gone. I drank all the time. Alcohol had never tasted this good. I needed it. War turned me into a stranger.”In addition to portraying an innocent 20-year-old Phan Nhật Nam metamorphosing into a soldier suffering from PTSD, Dấu binh lửa also presents a dark picture of the situation that Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) soldiers faced in the 1960s. The ARVN soldiers, as Phan Nhật Nam shows, had to fight against both the northern communist army troops and southern communist guerrillas. They were also deployed to deal with protests in the cities as well as military coups within the ARVN. They had to face a countryside that was suspicious, where villagers did not cooperate with them in the least. They witnessed poverty and destruction that drove Vietnamese women to sex work. Too, they were discriminated against by their own allies, the Americans. To readers today, Phan Nhật Nam’s writing suggests that the situation of ARVN soldiers was doomed long before the fall of Sài Gòn.Soon after the successful reception of Dấu binh lửa, Phan Nhật Nam published his second book, Dọc đường số 1. In it, Phan Nhật Nam continued to expose the horrors of war, the tragic suffering of civilians, and the tormented souls of ARVN soldiers in combat. Three essays in Dọc đường số 1 also convey Phan Nhật Nam’s views on the role of the United States in the war in Vietnam at the time. In an essay entitled “Xin cho được nói” [Let Me Speak], he expresses his gratitude to American soldiers for their service and sacrifice on the land of Vietnam, and for their support and assistance to RVN soldiers. But he also criticizes American soldiers for committing war crimes, discriminating against RVN soldiers, interfering in the RVN’s domestic affairs, and perpetrating racism. In another essay, “Những ý nghĩ sau một cuộc hành quân” [Thoughts after a Military Operation], he expresses his fury at Senator Robert F. Kennedy belittling the role of ARVN soldiers in the war.But Phan Nhật Nam’s war reportage is not only about destruction, horror, pain, frustration, and anger. It is also about love and longing. Love for his country. Love for fellow soldiers. And longing for peace.In 1967, after witnessing the destruction of a village in Thừa Thiên, he wrote, “It’s way too much for me. Please grant me a quiet and peaceful world so that I am not woken up by explosions. Please grant me a river that is not full of blood, and without the reflection of burnt-down cathedrals. Please grant me a peaceful sleep by the spring river of my childhood.”5

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