On Our Own Strength: The Self-Reliant Literary Group and Cosmopolitan Nationalism in Late Colonial Vietnam Available to Purchase

On Our Own Strength is a well-written, meticulously researched investigation into Vietnam's famous avant-garde writers collective. The Self-Reliant Literary Group, whose works remain classics in the Vietnamese literary canon, has long been misunderstood, and On Our Own Strength corrects the history. Founded in Hanoi in the early 1930s, the Self-Reliant Literary Group produced famous works of fiction, published newspapers, engaged in charitable activities, promoted fashion and art, and introduced a biting sense of humor to the Vietnamese public sphere. The group rose to prominence as Vietnam was experiencing a profound generation gap. In the early twentieth century, the end of the Confucian exams, changes in the writing system, and the imposition of the French education system meant that young Vietnamese of this generation viewed the world in a way that was dramatically different from their parents. A product of this generation gap, as well as a driver of it, the...