1. Tran Huu Ta, “Doc Hoi Ky Cach Mang: Nghi ve Ve Dep cua Nguoi Chien Si Cong San Viet Nam” [“Reading Revolutionary Memoirs: Thoughts on the Beauty of Vietnamese Communist Warriors”], Tap Chi Van Hoc [Journal of Literature] 2, no. 164 (1997): 17–28.

2. See, for some examples, Nguyen Tao, Trong Nguc Toi Hoa Lo [In the Dark Prison, Hoa Lo] (Hanoi: NXB Van Hoc, 1959); Tran Dang Ninh, Hai Lan Vuot Nguc [Two Prison Escapes] (Hanoi: NXB Van Hoc, 1970); Tran Cung, “Tu Con Dao Tro Ve (Hoi Ky)” [“Return from Poulo Condore (Memoirs)”], Nghien Cuu Lich Su [Journal of Historical Studies] 134, no. 9 (1970):18–26; Bui Cong Trung, “O Con Dao” [“In Con Dao”], in Len Duong Thang Loi [On the Road to Victory] (Hanoi: NXB Hanoi, 1985); Ha Phu Huong, “O Nha Tu Lao Bao” [“In Lao Bao Prison”], Tap Chi Cua Viet, no. 3 (1990). The following (some reprints) can be found in Suoi Reo Nam Ay [The Bubbling Spring That Year] (Hai Phong: NXB Thong Tin-Van Hoa, 1993): Dang Viet Chau, “Nguc Son La 1935–1936” [“Son La Prison 1935–1936”]; Van Tien Dung, “Niem Tin La Suc Manh” [“Belief Is Strength”]; Xuan Thuy, “Suoi Reo Nam Ay” [“The Bubbling Spring That Year”]; Nguyen van Tu, “Toi Lam Cau Doi Tet o Nha Tu Son La” [“I Make Rhyming Couplets on New Year Occasion in Son La Prison”]. The following can be found in Tran Huy Lieu: Hoi Ky [Tran Huy Lieu: Memoirs] (Hanoi: NXB Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi, 1991): “Tinh trong Nguc Toi” [“Love in the Dark Prison”], “Duoi Ham Son La” [“In the Son La Hole”]“Xuan No trong Tu” [“Spring Blooms in Prison”], “Tren Hon Cau” [“On Hon Cau”]; “Phan Dau De Tro Nen Mot Dang Vien Cong San” [“Striving to Become a Communist Party Member”].

3. Martha Grace Duncan, Romantic Outlaws, Beloved Prisons: The Unconscious Meanings of Crime and Punishment (New York: New York University Press, 1996).

4. W. B. Carnochan, “The Literature of Confinement,” in The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society, ed. Norval Morris and David Rothman, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 427.

5. See the essay by Christoph Giebel in this volume.

6. Tran Huu Ta, “Doc Hoi Ky Cach Mang,” 17.

7. Huynh Sanh Thong, ed. and trans., The Heritage of Vietnamese Poetry (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979), 22.

8. David Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1925–1945 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), 308.

9. Nguyen Ngoc Bich, A Thousand Years of Vietnamese Poetry (New York: Knopf, 1975), 32.

10. Huynh Sanh Thong, The Heritage of Vietnamese Poetry, 41.

11. Nguyen Khac Vien and Huu Ngoc, ed. and trans., Vietnamese Literature: Historical Background and Texts (Hanoi: Red River, 1980), 383.

12. For a biographical sketch of Nguyen Huu Cau, see Tran van Giap et al., Luoc Truyen Cac Tac Gia Viet Nam [Sketch of Vietnamese Authors] (Hanoi: NXB Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi, 1971), 298.

13. Huynh Sanh Thong, The Heritage of Vietnamese Poetry, 57.

14. Nguyen Khac Vien and Huu Ngoc, Vietnamese Literature: Historical Background and Texts, 574.

15. Tran Huy Lieu, “What's My Crime?” trans. Huynh Sanh Thong, Vietnam Forum, no. 13 (1990): 140.

16. Tran Huy Lieu, “Doc Tap Tho Nhat Ky trong Tu cua Ho Chu Tich” [“Reading Chairman Ho's Prison Diary”], Nghien Cuu Van Hoc [Journal of Literary Studies] 6 (1960): 21.

17. Xuan Dieu, “Yeu Tho Bac” [“Loving Uncle's Poetry”], in Tap Nghien Cuu Binh Luan Chon Loc ve Tho Van Ho Chu Tich [Selected Commentaries and Studies on Chairman Ho's Poetry] (Hanoi: Giao Duc, 1978), 79–81.

18. Dang Thai Mai, Van Tho Cach Mang Viet Nam Dau The Ky XX (1900–1925) [Vietnamese Revolutionary Prose and Poetry in the Early Twentieth century] (Hanoi: NXB Van Hoc, 1964), 158.

19. Ibid., 154.

20. David Marr, Vietnamese Anticolonialism: 1885–1925 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971), 241–44.

21. Huynh Thuc Khang, Tu Truyen [Autobiography] (Hue: Anh Minh, 1963), 66.

22. See ibid.

23. Nguyen The Anh, “A Case of Confucian Survival in Twentieth-Century Vietnam: Huynh Thuc Khang and His Newspaper Tieng Dan,” Vietnam Forum, no. 8 (1986): 182.

24. Huynh Thuc Khang, Thi Tu Tung Thoai [Prison Verse] (Hue: NXB Tieng Dan, 1939, 42.

25. Translation is from Huynh Sanh Thong, ed. and trans., An Anthology of Vietnamese Poems: From the Eleventh through the Twentieth Centuries (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996), 118.

26. Ton Quang Phiet, Mot Ngay Ngan Thu [The Eternal Day] (Hue: Phuc Long, 1935), 11.

27. Nhuong Tong, Doi trong Nguc [Life in Prison] (Hanoi: Van Hoa Moi, 1935), 12.

28. Literary scholars point out that prisons and imprisonment have figured prominently in the French literary tradition. Victor Brombert writes of an “explosion of prison literary images in nineteenth-century France.” Victor Brombert, The Romantic Prison: The French Tradition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978). According to W. B. Carnochan, “From the Royal hostage Charles d'Orle´ans (1394–1465) to Genet … theprison has always been a more fertile source of poetry in France than in England and America.” Carnochan, “The Literature of Confinement,” 432.

29. “In the area of literature, what the youth of Vietnam had available to read in school and out of school were works of French Classicists and Romantics.” Cong Huyen Ton Nu Nha Trang, “The Role of French Romanticism in the New Poetry Movement in Vietnam,” in Borrowings and Adaptations in Vietnamese Culture, ed. Truong Buu Lam, Southeast Asia Paper No. 25 (Honolulu: Center for Asia and Pacific Studies), 52–62.

30. See John Schaffer and Cao Thi Nhu Quynh, “Ho Bieu Chanh and the

31. For a discussion of the novel and its debt to Dumas, see Alexander Woodside, Community and Revolution in Vietnam (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976), 268.

32. See Tran Hinh, “Victo Huygo va cac Nha Van Viet Nam” [“Victor Hugo and Vietnamese Writers”], in Hugo o Viet Nam [Hugo in Vietnam], ed. Luu Lien (Hanoi: NXB Vien Van Hoc, 1985), 418.

33. Ibid., 420–21.

34. On Hugo's preoccupation with crime and punishment, see Brombert, The Romantic Prison, 91–117.

35. Dang Anh Dao, “Victo Huygo va con Nguoi Viet Nam Hien Dai” [“Victor Hugo and Vietnamese Today”], in Hugo o Viet Nam, ed. Luu Lien, 367. In 1926, Pham Quynh introduced Hugo's work to the readers of the influential journal Nam Phong. Portions of Les Mise´rables were serialized in Tieng Dan in the early 1930s. In 1936, novelist Vu Trong Phung published a Vietnamese translation of Lucrèce Borgia entitled Giet Me [Matricide]. According to Nguyen Dang Manh, Phung also translated (but never published) Le Dernier jour d'un condamne´. See Nguyen Dang Manh and Tran Huu Ta, eds., Tuyen Tap Vu Trong Phung [Collected Works of Vu Trong Phung], vol. 1 (Hanoi: NXB Van Hoc, 1993), 12.

36. Victor Oliver, Cao Dai Spiritism (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976). For more on Cao Dai, see Jayne Werner, Peasant Politics and Religious Sectarianism: Peasant and Priest in the Cao Dai in Vietnam (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1981).

37. In the same interview, Linh discussed his admiration for French romanticist Hector Malot. The interview appears in Neil Sheehan, After the War Was Over (New York: Vintage, 1993), 75.

38. Tran Hinh argues that Hugo influenced the poetry of To Huu, the ICP's most celebrated poet. He also notes that Ho Chi Minh often recalled reading Les Mise´rables while a student in Hue. Tran Hinh, “Victo Huygo va cac Nha Van Viet Nam,” 412.

39. Tran Van Giau, “The First Propagandist for the Ideas of 1789 in Vietnam,” Vietnamese Studies, no. 21 (1991): 12.

40. For an examination of Bastille imagery in political rhetoric during the 1930s, see Peter Zinoman, The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam, 1862–1940 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001), 256–57.

41. De´poˆt d'Archives d'Outre-Mer (AOM) in Aixen-Provence: Service de Liaison des Originaires des Territoires Franc¸ais d'Outre-Mer (SLOTFOM), Series 3, Carton 49 Dossier: Les Associations Anti-Franc¸aises et la Propagande Communiste en Indochine, July–August 1931.

42. Daniel He´mery, Re´volutionaires vietnamiens et pouvoir colonial en Indochine (Paris: Maspe´ro, 1975), 155.

43. Silvio Pellico, My Prisons (London: Oxford University Press, 1963).

44. Dang Thai Mai, Van Tho Cach Mang Viet Nam Dau The Ky XX, 76.

45. Nguyen Van Vinh translated Dumas's Les Trois mousquetaires into quocngu

46. Phan Van Hum, Ngoi Tu Kham Lon [A Stay in the Central Prison](1929; reprint, Saigon: NXB Dan Toc, 1957), 129.

47. An early revolutionary and longtime Politburo member, Pham Hung eventually became head of the Central Committee Directorate for the South (COSVN).

48. Pham Hung, In the Death Cell (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960), 75.

49. Hoang Anh, “Nha Tu De Quoc Tro Thanh Truong Hoc cua Chien Si Cach Mang” [“Imperialist Prisons Become Schools for Revolutionary Fighters”], Tap Chi Cong San [Communist Review] 1, no. 40 (1990): 3–9; Nguyen Luu, “Nha Tu Son La, Truong Hoc Cach Mang” [“Son La Prison, School for Revolutionaries”], Nghien Cuu Lich Su [Journal of Historical Studies] 103(1975): 57–71; Tran Huy Lieu, “Tu Hoc trong Tu” [“Self-Study in Prison”], Nguyen Thieu, “Truong Hoc trong Tu” [“Prison School”], Nguyen Duc Thuan, “Truong Hoc Xa Lim” [“Cell School”], Nguyen Duy Trinh, “Lam Bao va Sang Tac Tieu Thuyet trong Nha Lao Vinh” [“Writing Newspapers and Novels in Vinh Prison”], all in Truong Hoc sau Song Sat [School behind the Iron Bars](Hanoi: NXB Thanh Nien, 1969).

50. Tran Huy Lieu, “Tu Hoc trong Tu,” 142.

51. “Le Duan Recalls Days as Prisoner on Con Son,” Foreign Broadcast Information Service–East Asia Service-76 (9/3/76, Hanoi Vietnamese News Agency in English, 1454 GMT).

52. Escape attempts figure in most “revolutionary prison memoirs,” and a sizable number are concerned almost exclusively with the planning and execution of breakouts. For examples, see Nguyen Tao, Vuot Nguc Dak Mil [Escape from Dak Mil] (Hanoi: NXB Thanh Nien, 1976); Tran Dang Ninh, “Vuot Nguc Son La” [“Escape from Son La Prison”], in Suoi Reo Nam Ay, 176–208; Ngo Van Quynh, “Am Vang Cuoc Vuot Nguc” [“Echo of an Escape”], in Suoi Reo Nam Ay, 208–18; Vu Duy Nhai, “Nho Lai nhung Ngay Thoat Nguc Son La” [“Recalling the Days of Escape from Son La Prison”], in Suoi Reo Nam Ay, 264–83; Tran Huy Lieu, “Nghia Lo Khoi Nghia—Nghia Lo Vuot Nguc” [“Nghia Lo Uprising—Escape from Nghia Lo”], in Tran Huy Lieu: Hoi Ky, 278–344; Tran Tu Binh, “Thoat Nguc Hoa Lo” [“Escape from Hoa Lo Prison”], in Ha Noi Khoi Nghia [Hanoi Uprising] (Hanoi: NXB Hanoi, 1966).

53. Nguyen Tao, Chung Toi Vuot Nguc [We Escape from Prison] (Hanoi: NXB Van Hoa, 1977).

54. For an analysis of the composition of the Indochinese penal population during the 1930s, see Zinoman, The Colonial Bastille, chaps. 4 and 7.

55. Ibid. The issue is complicated by the fact that political activists were often sentenced for common-law crimes.

56. AOM–Affaires Politiques 7F 1728 Dossier: Mission d'Inspection: Rapport fait par M. Le Gregam, Inspecteur des Colonies sur les ı

ˆles et les pe´nitenciers de Poulo Condore, February 23, 1932, 33.

57. Dang Thai Mai placed Huynh Thuc Khang's prison memoirs along with the accounts of Le Van Hien and Cuu Kim Son as a formative influence on the producers of “revolutionary prison memoirs.” Dang Thai Mai, Van Tho Cach Mang Viet Nam Dau The Ky XX, 123.

58. Huynh Thuc Khang, Thi Tu Tung Thoai, 50.

59. For a general treatment of the ICP's literary policies in the 1950s, see Hirohide Kurihara, “Changes in the Literary Policy of the Vietnamese Worker's Party, 1956–1958,” in Indochina in the 1940s and 1950s, ed. Takashi Shiraishi and Motoo Furuta (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1992), 143–64.

60. Phung Quan, Vuot Con Dao (1955; reprint, Hue: NXB Thanh Hoa, 1987).

61. Vu Tu Nam, “Mot So Y Kien Tham Gia Ket Thuc Cuoc Tranh Luan: Phe Binh Cuon Vuot Con Dao” [“Some Opinions regarding the Debate: A Critique of Escape from Con Dao”], Bao Van Nghe [Literature and Arts Newspaper], July 28, 1955, 3. The same article noted that over one hundred letters commenting on Vuot Con Dao had been sent to the journal Sinh Hoat Van Nghe [Literary and Artistic Activities], some by readers who had served time in colonial prisons.

62. Georges Boudarel, Cent fleurs e´closes dans la nuit du Vietnam: Communisme et dissidence, 1945–1956 (Paris: Jacques Bertoin, 1991), 121–24.

63. After going through four editions in the first half of 1955, Vuot Con Dao was pulled from circulation and only republished in 1987. For more on the public criticism of Phung Quan and his novel, see A. T. “Hai Cuoc Thao Luan ve Viet Bac va Vuot Con Dao” (“Two Debates about Viet Bac and Escape from Con Dao”], Bao Van Nghe, March 20, 1955.

64. The official attacks against Phung Quan and Vuot Con Dao anticipated by almost two years the repression of the northern literary movement known today as Nhan Van Giai Pham. For two cogent accounts of Nhan Van Giai Pham, see Hoang Giang, “La Re´volte des intellectuels au Vietnam en 1956,” and Georges Boudarel, “Intellectual Dissidence in the 1950s: The ‘Nhan Van Giai Pham'Affair,” both in Vietnam Forum, no. 13, (1990): 144–79.

65. Phan Van Hum, Ta Thu Thau, and Ho Huu Tuong were members of competing Trotskyist factions during the 1930s and 1940s. Nguyen An Ninh was an eclectic radical who combined strains of Marxism, anarchism, Buddhism, and southern Vietnamese secret society traditions.

66. For a characteristic treatment of communist-nationalist conflict behind bars, see Tran Van Giau, Su Phat Trien cua Tu Tuong o Viet Nam Tu The Ky XIX den Cach Mang Thang Tam [Ideological Development in Vietnam from the Nineteenth Century to the August Revolution], vol. 2 (Hanoi: NXB Khoa Hoc Xa hoi, 1975), 592–600.

67. “Le Duan Recalls Days as Prisoner on Con Son.”

68. On the Viet Minh's execution of Ta Thu Thau, see David Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), 435.

69. For an extended discussion, see Zinoman, The Colonial Bastille, chaps.5 and 6.

70. The classic account in this vein is J. C. De´mariaux, Les Secrets des ıˆles Poulo Condore: Le grand bagne indochinois (Paris: J. Peyronnet & Cie, 1956).

71. Tran Huy Lieu, Tinh trong Nguc Toi [Love in the Dark Prison], in Tran Huy Lieu, Tran Huy Lieu: Hoi ky, 137.

72. Hoang Dung, ed., Tho Van Cach Mang 1930–1945 [Revolutionary Poems and Prose, 1930–1945] (Hanoi: NXB Van Hoc, 1980), 12.

73. Interview with Vo Van Truc, editor of Tieng Hat trong Tu, Hanoi, December 5, 1991.

74. Vo Van Truc, ed., Tieng Hat trong Tu, vol. 1 (Hanoi: NXB Thanh Nien, 1972), 193.

75. Ibid., 144.

76. Ty Van Hoa Thong Tin Son La, Tho Ca Cach Mang Nha Tu Son La 1930–1945 (Son La: NXB Son La, 1980), 7.

77. Ibid.

78. Ibid., 36.

79. As Alexander Woodside points out, “It does not slander the political contributions of one of the most hard-working and resourceful peasantries in all Asia to point out … that the Vietnamese revolution was led for the most part by the sons of the traditional intelligentsia, and that this was the section of Vietnamese society which found itself earliest and most often in demeaning circumstances of cultural and political conflict with the colonial power.” Wood-side, Community and Revolution in Vietnam, 303.

80. Bernard Fall, The Viet Minh Regime, Data Paper No. 14 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1954), 74.

81. Hy Van Luong's discussion of the elite origins of the Vietnamese revolutionary leadership is particularly instructive. Hy Van Luong, “Agrarian Unrest from an Anthropological Perspective: The Case of Vietnam,” Comparative Politics 17, no. 2 (January 1985): 165–70. See also Douglas Pike, History of Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1976 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1978), 67.

82. On the proletarianization movement, see Gareth Porter, “Proletariat and Peasantry in Early Vietnamese Communism,” Asian Thought and Society 1, no.3 (1976): 333–46.

83. Nowhere is this connection between imprisonment and proletarianization more clearly stated than in an interview French writer Andre´e Viollis conducted with a former political prisoner in Saigon on October 14, 1931. Describing the significance of his prison experience, the young revolutionary told Viollis: “It was that [prison] which made me a revolutionary, more so because I was not born into the proletarian class.” Andre´e Viollis, Indochine S.O.S (1935; reprint, Paris: Les Editeurs Franc¸ais Re´unis, 1949), 25.

84. For a surprisingly frank discussion of the checkered publishing history of Nhat Ky trong Tu, including the suppression of almost two dozen poems in the original manuscript, see Phan Van Cac, “Tu Ban Dich Nam 1960 den Ban Dich Bo Sung va Chinh Ly Nam 1983” [“From 1960 Translation to the Supplemented and Corrected Translation of 1983”], in Suy Nghi Moi Ve Nhat Ky Trong Tu [New Reflections on the Prison Diary], ed. Nguyen Hue Chi (Hanoi: NXB Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi, 1990).