Dumb Luck: A Novel by Vu Trong Phong (Southeast Asia: Politics, Meaning and Memory) - Softcover

Banned in Vietnam until 1986, Dumb Luck-by the controversial and influential Vietnamese writer Vu Trong Phung-is a bitter satire of the rage for modernization in Vietnam during the late colonial era. First published in Hanoi during 1936, it follows the absurd and unexpected rise within colonial society of a street-smart vagabond named Red-haired Xuan. As it charts Xuan's fantastic social ascent, the novel provides a panoramic view of late colonial urban social order, from the filthy sidewalks of Hanoi's old commercial quarter to the gaudy mansions of the emergent Francophile northern upper classes. The transformation of traditional Vietnamese class and gender relations triggered by the growth of colonial capitalism represents a major theme of the novel. Dumb Luck is the first translation of a major work by Vu Trong Phung, arguably the greatest Vietnamese writer of the twentieth century. The novel's clever plot, richly drawn characters and humorous tone and its preoccupation with sex, fashion and capitalism will appeal to a wide audience. It will appeal to students and scholars of Vietnam, comparative literature, colonial and postcolonial studies, and Southeast Asian civilization. Vu Trong Phung died in Hanoi, in 1939 at the age of twenty-seven. He is the author of at least eight novels, seven plays, and several other works of fiction in addition to Dumb Luck.

Vu Trong Phung is arguably the greatest Vietnamese writer of the twentieth century. Compared to Balzac by some, he was a prolific and controversial satirist unafraid to challenge the prevailing mores of his age. Although he died before his twenty-seventh birthday, Vu Trong Phung amassed a body of work that includes eight novels, seven plays, and five book-length works of nonfiction. Dumb Luck is generally acknowledged as his defining masterpiece. Peter Zinoman is Associate Professor of Southeast Asian History at the University of California, Berkeley. A writer, editor, and translator in addition to being a scholar, his research interests include the cultural, social, and political history of Vietnam, as well as the history of twentieth-century Vietnamese literature. He is also the author of The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam, 1862-1940. Nguyen Nguyet Cam is Vietnamese Language Instructor at the University of California, Berkeley. A gifted linguist, she has published numerous translations of works from English into Vietnamese, including two of E. B. White's classic children's novels, Charlotte's Web and The Trumpet of the Swan. She has also translated several pieces of Vietnamese fiction into English.