It is known that you teach Literature and have a Master's degree in Literature, which gives you the strength and conditions to improve your language skills. Is this the opportunity that led you to become a professional writer?
- Honestly, I never thought I would become a professional writer, even now, when writing has become a daily job. I just feel the need to write down what I am thinking, as a need to release energy. Perhaps my passion combined with a thorough and in-depth education has helped me become a serious writer like today. Teaching Literature helps me to be exposed to words every day, to practice writing; the job supports me a lot in the writing process.
As one of your beloved readers, following the literary path you are taking every day, I see the name Dao An Duyen mentioned in almost every field trip or writing camp?
- I feel very lucky and fortunate to have participated in writing camps organized by the Vietnam Association of Ethnic Minorities, the Vietnam Union of Literature and Arts Associations, the Army Literature Magazine, or field trips with members of the Gia Lai Association of Literature and Arts... This is a very good environment for me to meet and exchange writing experiences with fellow writers.
In addition, I also travel by myself. These trips help me understand more about many lands and people with diverse and unique cultures, and at the same time accumulate more materials to enrich my writings.
It can be seen that each trip is another time for her to build up memories, with her literary friends, with her creative journey, with her homeland. So, what is different about the works she wrote during her journey of “passionately preserving the greenness” of life that attracts readers?
- I really just want to write down what is in my heart in the most natural way. As for how to receive my work and give it my feelings, I will leave it to the readers, whom I deeply respect.
However, because there are readers who love my work, I always have to be more mature and meticulous. That can be seen in my creative journey, every land I pass through, every person I meet, I leave my mark with the most truthful and beautiful words, both in prose and poetry. That is the "freshness" that I always want to keep in this life. And many people commented that Dao An Duyen is increasingly "mature" in her career, partly thanks to such trips.
There are many works composed during field trips, which when I read them again, I still have the same feelings. One of them is the poem On the top of the clouds. That time, in the program of the trip, we went to the rubber plantation to meet the latex tapping workers at 2am. It was raining, the road was slippery. Yet the workers had to squeeze through each tree to tap latex under the flickering light of flashlights. More specifically, those with small children had to take their children to the nursery to go to the plantation to work…
The images of children sleeping in their mothers’ arms, passed to the teacher, and the flickering light in the middle of the night forest haunted me forever. When it was time to announce the poem, I had to ask someone else to read it for me because I was so moved.
Spending time reading your works, whether poetry or prose, I always feel the deep love you have for Gia Lai and the Central Highlands. How did that love originate?
- I was not born in Gia Lai, but for more than 30 years, this land has nurtured me, is the source of all the feelings for the basalt land that I carry in my heart. And when my heart is full of feelings, I just need to put my hands on the keyboard and I can write. This is a land rich in cultural sediments, wild and beautiful nature, sincere and simple people... I go somewhere for a few days and then want to return.
The highlands that appear in your works have a unique beauty, gentle, soulful but no less enchanting. Continuing that creative vein, what are your plans for the future?
- I will continue to travel and write. I want to explore more of Gia Lai in particular and the Central Highlands in general, to have more in-depth works about life, culture and people here. I think there are many things in this highland that I have not yet touched. And literature is the motivation for me to engage in life, to worry about the gains and losses that are happening on the very land that is nurturing me.
Thank you for this conversation.
Source: https://baogialai.com.vn/nha-tho-dao-an-duyen-thiet-tha-giu-lai-nhung-xanh-tuoi-cuoc-doi-post560219.html
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