Vũ Trọng Phụng

Vũ Trọng Phụng (1912–1939) was a Vietnamese novelist, journalist, and playwright whose sharp satire portrayed social change and colonial-era life.

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Dumb Luck: A 1936 Vietnamese satirical novel by Vũ Trọng Phụng about an opportunist whose rise exposes social hypocrisy. Its absurd hero becomes a vehicle for the novel’s attack on fashionable respectability.
Satire: A mode of expression that uses ridicule, irony, or exaggeration to expose folly and wrongdoing. It is the broad literary mode through which Phụng attacks social pretensions.
French Indochina: The French colonial federation in Southeast Asia that included Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Its political order framed the institutions and inequalities in his writing.
Tự Lực Văn Đoàn: A Vietnamese literary group founded in the 1930s that promoted modern prose and social reform. The group’s literary modernism provides a nearby point of comparison for Phụng’s writing.
Vietnamese modern literature: Literature shaped by modern forms, institutions, and social change in Vietnam. Phụng’s prose helped define the possibilities of modern Vietnamese fiction.
The Storm: A Vietnamese novel by Vũ Trọng Phụng depicting the upheaval of a family and society amid colonial-era change. This novel shows his reach beyond the comic social satire of Dumb Luck.
Social realism: A literary and artistic approach that depicts ordinary people and social conditions, often with critical intent. His vivid attention to class and urban life gives satire a realist setting.
Hanoi: The capital of Vietnam, a major political and cultural center in northern Vietnam. The city’s colonial-era neighborhoods and public life recur in his urban fiction.
Ngô Tất Tố: A Vietnamese writer and journalist known for works criticizing rural poverty and colonial-era social structures. His social criticism offers a parallel to Phụng’s attention to injustice.
Vietnamese theater: The performance traditions and dramatic forms developed in Vietnam. His plays connect his literary reputation to modern Vietnamese stage culture.