Four volumes of Nhật Ký Thời Chiến (Wartime Diary) have been released on the occassion of the 45th Liberation and Reunification Day on April 30. — Photo baochinhphu.vn

Nhật Ký Thời Chiến Việt Nam (Wartime Diary) has four volumes have about 1,000 pages long. Soldier Dang Vuong Hung compiled and edited the work from 2004 to 2020.

People will be moved by poetic and pure language, full of desire for a peaceful life, according to Hung.

"The truthful diaries help readers to imagine the fierce battles fought during the national resistance against the US," Hung said.

"The battles were dangerous and there was no boundary between life and death. Everything we read in the books is true and though it may be crude it's also fresh and alive because it is real people, real events and very real moods.

"No one can compel people to tell the truth about pent-up resentment, injustice, sadness or even 'living in fear', but the writers here were willing to speak out."

The book includes the two most popular diaries entitled Nhật Ký Đặng Thùy Trâm (Dang Thuy Tram's Diary) and martyr Nguyen Van Thac's Mãi Mãi Tuổi 20 (Forever Twenty).

It was penned by the North Vietnamese female doctor Dang Thuy Tram in the 1960s while she was working in a field hospital in Quang Ngai Province. The young doctor was killed by US troops in June 1970 at the age of 27.

The diary was found and preserved by American soldier Fred Whitehurst, who donated it to the Vietnam Center and Archives at Texas Tech University 35 years later. Officials, with the aid of veteran Tom Engelmann and American writer Lady Borton, were able to locate Tram's family, and the diary was returned to them in 2005.

That same year, thousands of copies of the diary were published in Vietnam, and it became a phenomenon. It has been translated into English, South Korean, Thai and Spanish.

Diaries by martyrs such as Chu Cam Phong, Duong Thi Xuan Quy and Nguyen Minh Son are also included.

The series is a valuable work conveying a message of good and humanity, said the association's deputy chairman Nguyen Quang Thieu.

Original wartime diaries by martyrs and soldiers. Photos courtesy of the Writers' Association Publishing House. — Photo baochinhphu.vn

"These diaries were written on the battlefield and tell us what the writers most wanted to say knowing they might never return to their families and homeland," Thieu said.

"Only when death is near the voices of people become the most truthful. And that honesty has proved their patriotism and their love of independence and freedom. They devoted all their young years to the fatherland."

"Many years after the American War, researchers have said that the greatest discovery the Americans made in Vietnam is was the Vietnamese culture. The diaries by Vietnamese soldiers have tremendous value to Vietnamese culture, not just the national resistance for liberation."

The series is being published by the Writer Publishing and Forever Twenty Age Fund. It will go on sale online at the national book festival at book365.vn. — VNS

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