Xuân Diệu
| Xuân Diệu | |
|---|---|
| Born | Ngô Xuân Diệu February 2, 1916 Bình Định, Vietnam |
| Died | December 18, 1985 (aged 69) Hanoi, Vietnam |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality |
 Vietnam
|
| Notable works |
Thơ Thơ Gửi Hương Cho Gió |
Ngô Xuân Diệu (February 2, 1916 – December 18, 1985) more commonly known by the pen name Xuân Diệu, was a prominent Vietnamese poet. A colossal figure in modern Vietnamese literature, he wrote about 450 poems (largely in posthumous manuscripts) especially love poems, several short stories, and many notes, essays, and literary criticisms.
He was born in Gò Bồi, Tùng Giản commune, Tuy Phước District, Bình Định Province, Vietnam (maternal homeland). His father was Ngô Xuân Thọ, a teacher, and his mother was Nguyễn Thị Hiệp. He studied in Qui Nhơn, Huế, and later Hanoi (1938–1940). He obtained a degree in agricultural engineering in 1943 and worked in Mỹ Tho for a while before returning to Hanoi.
In 1943, he joined the Viet Minh and became one of the leading poets writing to promote resistance against the French.
Although well known for his love poems, he was married for only six months without consummating the marriage before divorcing from his wife and died a bachelor. Many people believe that he was homosexual along with his lifelong friend the famous poet Huy Cận, as shown through his many poems about love dedicated to (and apparently addressed to) various men. These poems include "Tình trai" ("Man's Love", about the love affair between the French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine) and "Em đi" ("You leave", a heartfelt poem dedicated to a younger man with whom the poet shared a house for several years). In his memoirs published in 1993, the writer Tô Hoài confirmed that Xuân Diệu was reprimanded while in the Viet Minh for molesting other men in bed.
Throughout his career, Xuân Diệu had been variously known as a romantic poet, "the greatest poet among the new poets", and "the king of love poems" (he himself gave Hồ Xuân Hương the sobriquet "the Queen of Nôm poetry").
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