Nguyễn Du: Truyện Kiều

I am ashamed to confess that I had to read Truyện Kiều in English in order to understand Nguyễn Du’s epic poem—thanks to the skillful translation from Vương Thanh. I tried to read Vietnamese several times, but I gave up on the poetic language. Now that I know the story, I will go back to read Vietnamese.

You can read both the original version as well as the English translation right on a sample webpage I designed to showcase Vietnamese typography. I took 6,508 lines of poetry (Vietnamese and English) and put them all in one single webpage. That is the power of the web. I read it on my iPhone, but you can read it on any of your favorite device.