Mai Van Phan will be the second Vietnamese poet to receive the Swedish literary Cikada Award 2017, according to the Swedish Embassy in Hanoi.

Writer Le Van Phan

The award presentation ceremony will take place at the Temple of Literature – Van Mieu Quoc Tu Giam – in Hanoi on December 1 with the presence of Cikada Prize Chairman Lars Vargo, the Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam, and representatives from the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and European cultural agencies in Hanoi.

Previously, in 2015 Vietnamese poet Y Nhi won the illustrious prize.

Mai Van Phan was born in 1955 in northern Ninh Binh Province. He has published 14 volumes of poetry, a book of essays, and English and French translations of his poetry collections. He has won numerous domestic literature awards for his works.

Established in 2004 on the centenary of Swedish Nobel laureate Harry Martinson's birth, the Cikada prize is awarded every year to an East Asian poet who "in his/her poems shows poetic sensitivity for the inviolability of life."

VOV