Short Stories in Romanised National Language Script in Southern Vietnam Early in Twentieth Century

Abstract

Short stories written in quốc ngữ (lit. national language script), or Romanised characters to record the Vietnamese language, in Nam Bộ, or Cochinchina, were started late in the 19^th, then encountered an interruption and were continuously developed afterwards early in the 20^th century. The transformation from traditional folk tales to modern short stories of artistic character, they included works inspired with ethics and preaching and those reflecting vividly the real life. The short stories made no small contributions to the modernisation of the genre in particular and Vietnam’s national literature in general.