The author confirmed to Vietnam News that the 214-page novel, which was published in Vietnam in 2012 and reprinted, was translated into English by translators Nguyen Hoang Phong and Pham Viem Phuong this year before it got in the first issue by Song Magazine, and introduced online through Amazon.
Mot said it's his first novel that is translated and published by a publisher abroad. He said the novel depicts the long history of Catholicism in Vietnam by featuring a beautiful reasonless love affair between a holy woman, Ngan Ha, and a photographer Nguyen Chac, who in a journey back to his homeland disappeared without a trace.
Writer Ta Duy Anh said: "It's a tough novel topic. The author has been the first successful novelist introducing the Catholic religion's history in literary works in Vietnam."
Writer Suong Nguyet Minh also wrote his foreword for the novel: "The novel, ‘Journey Against the Sun' reflects vividly a variety of arts in a novel. You can find a short story in one section, but a theatre scenario of mysterious history or screenplay in other sections in the novel."
"Readers can find confusion of time and art and between old and new characters or ghostly protagonists. The novel depicts the sadness of the writer, but not melancholy. It really touches the ultimate of sorrow."
The author said: "You may be disturbed by fabulous stories and discrete patches of fates which are like a melancholy dream you could hardly recount fully after waking up."
Mot was born in 1964 in Duy Xuyen district in the central province of Quang Nam, but his parents died during the American war. He left his native land for the southern province of Dong Nai after the country's reunification in 1975. He worked as a teacher at a primary school from 1983-97, and a journalist for Tien Phong (Vanguard) Newspaper in 1998-2007.
He has been working for Truong Hai automobile company since then. Mot joined as a member of the Vietnam's Writers Association in 2006 and had over 10 novels. His Dat Troi Van Vu (Rain threatens Earth and Heaven) novel won C prize at a novel competition by the Association in 2006 to 2010. The latest novel is expected to be published in the US later this month.
