RE-EXAMINING THE ORIGIN OF THE TALE OF KIEU

Abstract

In the preface of the book “Kim Van Kieu Thanh Tam Tai Tu” – a Vietnamese translation of the novel “The Tale of Jin Yun Qiao” (金雲翹傳 Kim Van Kieu truyen) – published in 1971, the translator To Nam Nguyen Dinh Diem suggested that the novel “Kim Van Kieu truyen” was not created by a Chinese writer but could have been composed by a Vietnamese Confucian scholar based on Nguyen Du’s verse story “Doan truong tan thanh” (A New Cry from a Broken Heart – the official title of “The Tale of Kieu”). This suggestion seems to have been proved incorrect by many textual studies inside and outside Vietnam. However, the topic has been revived recently. This article presents a comprehensive literature review about “The Tale of Jin Yun Qiao”, adding more documents that we have recently collected in foreign countries, to give a firm conclusion about the origin of “The Tale of Kieu”.