Note on the translator

Nguyen Ngoc Bich studied at Columbia, Kyoto, and Georgetown after graduating from Princeton in 1958.  He settled in the United States after 1975, and made his career first in high school and adult education, then teaching at Trinity College, Georgetown and George Mason University.  He joined Radio Free Asia as director of the Vietnamese News Service in 1997.

Nguyen Ngoc Bich has been translating Nguyen Chi Thien’s poems since 1982.  He is as well the translator and author of nearly a dozen books and anthologies on Vietnamese society and literature.