Nguyễn Du

Nguyễn Du was born into a mandarin family in Hà Tĩnh amid the last convulsions of the Trịnh–Nguyễn wars, and lived through the fall of the Lê dynasty and the Tây Sơn rebellion that scattered his relatives across the country. He served, reluctantly, as a mandarin and diplomat under the new Nguyễn dynasty, once traveling to Qing China on embassy: an immersion in Chinese letters he balanced against writing in Vietnamese's vernacular Nôm script.

The Tale of Kiều, composed in his final years, adapts a minor Chinese novel into 3,254 rhymed Vietnamese couplets: Thúy Kiều, a gifted and filial daughter, sells herself into concubinage to save her father, then endures brothels, forced marriages, and exile before a fragile reunion. Its fusion of Confucian duty, Buddhist karma, and near-unbearable suffering made it Vietnam's national epic.

He died suddenly in 1820, having given Vietnamese literature the single work still recited from memory, quoted in daily speech, and consulted like an oracle across the country today.