About The Kingfisher Story Collection
Fables have a long history, possibly thousands of years. Common elements are the use of symbolism, moral lessons, animals as the primary characters, and humor. They continue to fascinate: Master Class even has a class on learning to write fables.
Quan-Hoang Vuong’s book, The Kingfisher Story Collection, joins this long running genre, and offers a Vietnamese slant. Vuong’s main character in a series of twenty-one short stories, what Vuong calls “snippets,” is a bird. The sage Kingfisher lives in a village of birds and other animals and over time, helps his colleagues learn lessons about society, relationships, pride, decency, and more. The stories are short, snappy, and feel like fables of old, with their lessons and humor. As with other fables, Kingfisher exemplifies the sage village elder (or near elder) who stops and thinks and offers the best responses he can to challenges, problems and deep questions.
I’ve spent years working in Vietnam and trying to understand the people and culture. This book, which I read when I returned home from a trip to Hanoi, made me a little homesick for Vietnam. It is a lively read and offers a charming peek into Vietnamese culture, delightful for a person who knows a lot—or nothing—about Vietnam.
— Written by Professor Nancy K. Napier —
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Author Bio:
Vuong Quan Hoang (Ph.D., Université Libre de Bruxelles) is one of the most important figures in contemporary Vietnamese social sciences and humanities, especially after 2000. He is a Distinguished Scientist at Phenikaa University (Vietnam). He has served in NAFOSTED’s Scientific Council since 2019 and the Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics since 2021. Vuong is an author and editor of 17 books in such libraries as: US Library of Congress, British Library, Harvard University, Cornell University, Yale University, UC Berkeley, Cambridge University, University of Oxford, etc. Besides books, he also contributed to approximately 200 academic publications published by 90 journals of various publishers (e.g., The National Bureau of Asian Research, CSIRO, MIT Press, Nature, Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, etc.). Pham Minh Chinh (Vietnam Prime Minister from 2021) and Prof. Ngo Bao Chau (Fields Medalist – Leader of VIASM) are his co-authors. He wrote 300 peer-review reports and provided editorial service to over 110 manuscripts.