Although he did not think he could survive another prison term, having been sent to labor camps since 1961
(when he was 22 years old) he took the chance and was arrested outside the gates of the British Embassy
in Hanoi.

The next eight years Nguyen Chi Thien spent at Hoa Lo Prison -- the "Hanoi Hilton" made famous by
American flyers.  This was 1979, the Communists had won after invading South Vietnam, and the
unrepentant poet kept composing in his memory, for the jailers would never allow him pen and paper.   In
1985 his poetry against the Communist regime of Vietnam won the International Poetry Prize in Rotterdam.  

As his international literary stature grew, so the conditions of his imprisonment grew more harsh.  He spent
eight of the twelve years between 1979 and 1991 in solitary darkness.  

His sister, twelve years older than Thien, sent the photo taken in 1978 to Amnesty International, Human
Rights Watch, the Vietnamese overseas -- everywhere to make the world know his plight in order to save
her brother.  Heads of state began to write the Hanoi ministry:  Leopold Senghor (who was also a prison
poet), John Major of England,  King Hussein of Jordan.  The French director Michel Deville made a moving
piece of letter-writing for Contre L'Oubli (Never Forget), a powerful documentary on concentration camps.  
The BBC, having access to his manuscript, made a television plea for release.  His only crime was poetry.

Finally, in 1991, the Vietnamese government prepared to release him after twenty-seven years
imprisonment.  The photo below was taken shortly before this release in October, 1991.  The pictures you
see here, from 1978 to 1991, show the effect of twelve years of imprisonment under starvation conditions.  
The "prison poet" weighed less than eighty pounds.    

Chi Thien brought this picture to the USA when he immigrated under a special humanitarian arrangement in
November, 1995.  He published it as the cover of his first book of poems of the 1979-1988 period (when he
grew too weak to create further).  It has been selected to be part of the exhibition on Vietnamese Americans
at the Smithsonian Institution in January, 2007.  Nguyen Chi Thien is now an American citizen.

Have you heard about the
forensic photo analysis?

Anh Duong online
translated by Golden Pen
(in Vietnamese and English)

Have you heard about the
handwriting analysis?

See handwriting of
Nguyen Chi Thien here
Nguyen Chi Thien at Ba Sao Prison, July, 1991.  Photo taken in the office
of the Chief of Security.   After eight years of solitary darkness the poet
is still unwilling to swear allegiance to Communism.  He won the battle
of will with the power of his mind.  Chi Thien predicted the fall of
communism in Russia that occurred the following month.   He also
predicted, in his poetry, the need for Vietnamese people to "make of
themselves a raft" and leave their homeland in order to survive.
This site was designed and written by Jean Libby, historian
and assistant to Mr. Thien for his English language materials.
The author of Hoa Dia
Nguc (Flowers of Hell)
burst into legend when
he brought his
manuscript of poems
composed in his
memory while
imprisoned in
Communist jails in North
Vietnam to the British
Embassy in Hanoi in
July, 1979.

As well as the
manuscript, the poet
brought his picture
taken the previous year
to prove his identity to
the free world.  
Mr. Thien's first original
publication in English

"An Autobiography"  in Manoa,  
Pacific Journal of International
Writing
Resilience of the Human Spirit: an international            
   gathering of poets at the Guthrie Center in                  
       Massachusetts, September 15-17, 2006.
   Mr. Thien is shown here with Valzhnya Mort,
   a poet from Belarus.  
photo courtesy Blue Flower Arts
Speaking for Democracy and Freedom in Vietnam
on April 21, 2007 -- Lion Plaza, San Jose, California
Nguyen Chi Thien,   
dissident Vietnamese poet