Nguyễn Đình Chiểu

Nguyễn Đình Chiểu (Chữ Hán: ; 1 July 1822 – 3 July 1888) was a Vietnamese poet who was known for his nationalist and anti-colonial writings against the French colonization of Cochinchina, the European name for the southern part of Vietnam.

He was the best known opponent of collaboration in the south of Vietnam and was regarded as the poet laureate of the southerners who continued to defy the Treaty of Saigon which ceded southern Vietnam to France, disobeying the royal orders of Emperor Tự Đức by harassing the French forces. His epic poem, Lục Vân Tiên, remains one of the most celebrated works in Vietnamese literature.

Life Nguyễn Đình Chiểu was born in the southern province of Gia Định, the location of modern Saigon. He was of gentry parentage; his father was a native of Thừa Thiên–Huế, near Huế; but, during his service to the imperial government of Emperor Gia Long, he was posted south to serve under Lê Văn Duyệt, the governor of the south. There, he took a second wife, who bore him four sons, one of whom was Chiểu. His blindness prevented Chiểu from making a physical contribution to the guerrilla efforts of the likes of Trương Định, the leading southern anticolonial. Chiểu was known for his vivid and highly proficient writing of poetry of chữ nôm, which was widely circulated in the south, mainly by word of mouth.

Chiểu did not portray Định as a rebel opposed to the Huế court. In an elegy to the fallen insurgents, Chiểu asserted that the resistance continued its struggle after the signing of the treaty by Huế "because their hearts would not heed the Son of Heaven's edict". Chiểu strongly supported the partisans’ efforts in continuing their attempt to expel the French from southern Vietnam, a cause he considered righteous, yet his reference to Tự Đức as the "Son of Heaven" indicate that the legitimacy of the Emperor was not called into question.

Long after the collapse of the southern resistance, Chiểu remained with a small group of students in Bến Tre. He continued to write poetry despite his works having been banned by the French regime. He refused to cooperate with the colonial system and shunned it. When an official of the French authorities offered him the land that had been taken from his family plot in Gia Định, he was reported to have sardonically replied, "When our common land, our country has been lost, how it is possible to have individual land?" Lục Vân Tiên – narrative poem, (truyện thơ) written in Nôm, begun in 1851, transmitted in writing and orally. First printing in China in 1864. Dương Từ-Hà Mậu – narrative poem (truyện thơ) written in Nôm, begun in 1854. First printing Saigon 1964. His poetry remained popular into the 20th century, particularly in the Mekong Delta where it continued to be circulated. Most cities in Vietnam have named major streets after him.

His granddaughter was the writer and poet Mai Huỳnh Hoa (1910–1987). Her husband, the Trotskyist, Phan Văn Hùm (1902–1945) published a popular study and selection of Chiểu's work in 1938 in Saigon (Nỗi lòng Đồ Chiểu), where his granddaughter assisted with a second edition in 1957.