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This landmark bilingual collection presents a comprehensive selection of Vietnamese poetry spanning nearly fifty years of warfare and its aftermath, from the Indochinese War (1946-1954) through the Vietnam War (1961-1975) and into the post-war period. Edited and translated by renowned Vietnam War scholars and poets Kevin Bowen and Bruce Weigl, in collaboration with Vietnamese poet and editor Nguyen Ba Chung, this volume captures the voices of Vietnamese writers who experienced, witnessed, or processed the transformative conflicts that shaped modern Vietnam.

Encompassing poetry from multiple generations, these poems reflect on the diverse responses to conflict: some express patriotic commitment, others grapple with loss and trauma, while many explore the intimate human experiences of war. Mountain River demonstrates how Vietnamese poets drew upon a rich literary tradition while creating new forms of expression to address the unprecedented scale of modern warfare. The result is a collaborative effort that represents a significant achievement in postwar Vietnamese-American literary relations and cross-cultural translation.

Written in journals and notebooks by ordinary soldiers who fought against American forces in Vietnam, the poems collected in this volume fill a longstanding void in the literature of that war. In addition to offering a revealing window into another culture – a culture that prizes poetry as an integral part of social life – the pieces provide a rare look at the conflict from the perspective of those who served in the National Liberation Front, the People’s Armed Forces, and the People’s Army of Vietnam. 

The format of this edition is bilingual, to enable both Vietnamese and American readers to share and appreciate these poignant and deeply personal documents, which were often written under fire and always in the face of death.