Nguyễn Đình Chiểu

Who was Nguyễn Đình Chiểu?

Nguyễn Đình Chiểu was a Vietnamese poet who was known for his nationalist and anti-colonial writings against the French colonization of Cochinchina, the European name for the southern part of Vietnam.

He was the best known opponent of collaboration in the south of Vietnam and was regarded as the poet laureate of the southerners who continued to defy the Treaty of Saigon which ceded southern Vietnam to France, disobeying the royal orders of Emperor Tự Đức to continue harassing the French forces. His epic poem, Lục Vân Tiên, remains one of the most celebrated works in Vietnamese literature.