His choice of translations reflected a lively mind and seemed to come from everywhere, both high art and low.
“Widely known for rendering ‘Gone with the Wind’ into Vietnamese, Duong Tuong translated a huge range of world literature, from Roald Dahl’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ to Stefan Zweig’s ‘Letter from an Unknown Woman,’ to Alex Haley’s ‘Roots,’ to Nikos Kazantzakis’s ‘Zorba the Greek,’ ” Cam Nguyen, a lecturer at the department of South and Southeast Asian studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an email.
He continued to write poetry, sometimes in innovative forms, producing scores of compositions, some of which, like “Love Song 24,” a romantic ballad released in 1998, were turned into popular songs.
“My biggest concern, the thing that makes me lose sleep the most, is still poetry, the anxiety of wanting to innovate and open up new directions,” he said.
The words never stopped coming, he said, even when he was asleep, sometimes waking him in the middle of the night with new inspirations.
“I still ‘sleep with words,’” he told an interviewer in 2020. “A habit I have had for nearly 60 years. My mind never rests.”
Mr. Tuong is survived by his wife, Nguyen Thi Trinh; a sister, Tran Thi Lien; Ms. Mai; another daughter, Tran Thi Huong; a son, Tran Hai Au; five grandchildren; four great-grandchildren and one great great-grandchild.
Source : Nytimes
