The Tale of Kiều

The Tale of Kiều
Truyện Kiều
Book cover with Chữ Nôm text, published 1905
Full title	Đoạn Trường Tân Thanh
Also known as	Truyện Kiều
Author(s)	Nguyễn Du
Language	Vietnamese
Date of issue	1820
State of existence	Emperor Minh Mạng
Authenticity	remake
Genre	poem
Verse form	lục bát (6/8)
Length	3,254 verses
Personages	Thúy Kiều
Sources	Jin Yun Qiao

The Tale of Kiều is an epic poem in Vietnamese written by Nguyễn Du (1766–1820), and is widely regarded as the most significant work of Vietnamese literature. The original title in Vietnamese is Đoạn Trường Tân Thanh (斷腸新聲, "A New Cry From a Broken Heart"), but it is better known as Truyện Kiều (傳翹, lit. "Tale of Kiều")  pronunciation .

In 3,254 verses, written in lục bát ("six–eight") meter, the poem recounts the life, trials and tribulations of Thúy Kiều, a beautiful and talented young woman, who has to sacrifice herself to save her family. To save her father and younger brother from prison, she sells herself into marriage with a middle-aged man, not knowing that he is a pimp, and is forced into prostitution. While modern interpretations vary, some post-colonial writers have interpreted it as a critical, allegorical reflection on the rise of the Nguyễn dynasty.

Nguyễn Du made use of the plot of a seventeenth-century Chinese novel, Jīn Yún Qiào (Chinese: 金雲翹), known in Vietnamese pronunciation of Chinese characters as Kim Vân Kiều. The original, written by an otherwise unknown writer under the pseudonym Qīngxīn Cáirén (Chinese: 青心才人 "Pure-Hearted Man of Talent"), was a straightforward romance, but Nguyễn Du chose it to convey the social and political upheavals at the end of the 18th century in Vietnam.