Khai Hung's novels and the Vietnamese mandarinate between 1920 and 1945

Authors

Kimloan Vu-Hill

Publication Date

2010-01-01

Abstract

This article examines some major novels by Khai Hung, a well known writer in Vietnam in the period 1930-1945, to glean social developments in Vietnam during this period. While there was a significant social transformation in the public domain, as shown by scholarly works by David Marr and Nguyen Van Ky, Khai Hung's novels show that in the families of the mandarinate (the Confucian educated literati, or members of the traditional ruling elite and their families), traditional values managed to survive and even to remain dominant in some cases. Also according to Khai Hung, it was probably this resistance to change that eventually led to the social and political revolution in the 1930s and 1940s, when some members of this social class broke away from the constraint of tradition and created for themselves a new world in which they became leaders of a new age.

DOI

10.58837/CHULA.ARV.23.1.6

First Page

85

Last Page

102

Recommended Citation

Vu-Hill, Kimloan (2010) "Khai Hung's novels and the Vietnamese mandarinate between 1920 and 1945," Asian Review: Vol. 23: No. 1, Article 7.
DOI: 10.58837/CHULA.ARV.23.1.6
Available at: https://digital.car.chula.ac.th/arv/vol23/iss1/7