Abstract

This study explores postmodernism in Vietnamese literature. While there has been much dispute among critics regarding postmodernism in Vietnamese literature, postmodernism is now thought to be something that cannot be denied. Vietnamese postmodernism has Vietnamese characteristics and is strongly influenced by American literature. The structure of some Vietnamese short stories is similar to that of some American writers. In the writings of Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard and Ihab Hassan, for example, we find out many characteristics which are ascribed to postmodern Vietnamese literature. We propose the use of the term ‘Lao Tzu discourse’which is to include the main concepts of postmodernism such as chaos, nothingness and fragmentation. We propose that postmodern Vietnamese Literature appeared in the 1940s with the collection, Fall Spring Poems (1942), and is also seen with the prose of Nguyen Khai and Nguyen Minh Chau in the 1980s, and the drama written by Luu Quang Vu in the 1980s. There now exists a large group of postmodern Vietnamese writers, like Le Dat, Thanh Thao, Bao Ninh, Cao Duy Son, Nguyen Ngoc Tu and Nguyen Binh Phuong, among others.