“Living Until Dawn” is a memory of Tran Mai Hanh’s journey as a journalist and writer, released after his death.
According to the editor of the National Political Publishing House Truth and Living, journalist Tran Mai Hanh hopes the book will be published on April 30 this year. He passed away on the afternoon of April 2 at the age of 81, on the way to visit the old battlefield.
Autobiography nearly 700 pages, divided into seven parts: A boy from a small province, Going through death, War and peace, Subsidy period amid the siege and embargo, The early years of journalistic innovation, The spiral, Living until dawn. Those are slices of his life from his childhood and student days to the war years, the Northern front, the Southern battlefield, peace, and his days of journalism during the reform period.
In the introduction at the beginning of the book, he said that the details in the book can help readers access more deeply the events, situations, situations, and characters that are real people and real things, which he recreated in his works. coil War records 1-2-3-4.75, Preface one love, The time I lived, Writing and dialogue.
Autobiography “Living until dawn” by Tran Mai Hanh. Image: Ha Thu
Pages related to the war account for about a third of the book. He wrote about the times he and his teammates went through life and death, lying in bed and tasting honey in harsh conditions. Although the situation is difficult, the soldier still maintains the desire to live and love, towards peace.
In it, the 50-page article records the progress of the Saigon – Gia Dinh campaign from the perspective of Tran Mai Hanh. He closely followed the campaign from March 1975, witnessed and wrote the first report about the historic moment at the Independence Palace on the afternoon of April 30, 1975.
Explaining the book’s title, journalist Tran Mai Hanh wrote in the introduction: “Facing death in war and adversities and jokes of fate, I always live and write with the belief that bright things will come. Name book Live until dawn was named an autobiography for that reason.”
Tran Mai Hanh was born in 1943, from Hai Duong, graduated from University of Literature (now Faculty of Literature, Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities), then worked at Vietnam News Agency. When she first started writing, Tran Mai Hanh won the 1970-1971 Van Nghe newspaper short story contest. He has a number of works such as: Thu Bon Sunshine, Love and the death penalty, Collapse and confession, The end of the world, War records 1-2-3-4.75, Preface a love, The time I lived.
Among them, novels War records 1-2-3-4.75 was translated into English, won the Vietnam Writers Association Award in 2014, and the ASEAN Literature Award in 2015. The book is a historical documentary novel, written about the last days of the Republic of Vietnam since Phuoc Long victory (January 1975) of the Liberation Army until the historic moments of noon on April 30, 1975 at the Independence Palace, including four full months: January 1 – February – March – April 1975. Tran Mai Hanh collected materials for about 10 years, planning to publish it in 2002 but had to shelve it. 10 years later, he rewrote the manuscript, published in April 2014.
In 1996, he was appointed general director of the Voice of Vietnam, elected as a member of the 8th and 9th Party Central Committee, and a representative of the 10th National Assembly of Vietnam. He was also vice president and general secretary. Signed the Vietnam Journalists Association and was also editor-in-chief of the newspaper Journalists and Public Opinion.
In 2003, he was suspended from all positions due to his involvement in the Nam Cam case and was sentenced to nine years in prison. In 2005, he was granted amnesty. Afterwards, he continued to write articles and articles under the pen name Tran Nhat Thi. In 2010, he used his real name again, Tran Mai Hanh.
Ha Thu
