| Researcher Nguyen Dinh Tu and his valuable book. (Source: General Publishing House of Ho Chi Minh City) |
Won Prize A of the National Book Award 2024, the work “Gia Dinh Saigon City Ho Chi Minh – Long Mile of History (1968-2020)” is not a surprise because it is a massive and precious, helping to illuminate many pages of the city's history. What surprises and admires readers is that the owner of this work is 104 years old and the book is the result of more than 20 years. years spent scouring libraries and archives, finding every item to accumulate and write about.
Researcher Nguyen Dinh Tu said that for a long time, many people have written about Saigon – Cho Lon and Ho Chi Minh City, but each person only writes about one issue, one area, and there is only has no exhaustive work on aspects and areas. the activities of the City. Even the book Cultural Geography of Ho Chi Minh City generally only talks about the areas of history, culture, art, ideology and religion, without mentioning other areas.
With this work, the author wishes to offer readers a complete and precise overview of the historical periods, from 1698 to 2020, political regimes and political, economic, social, cultural, cultural and cultural fields of action. education, medical, religion, fitness sport… from every period. The book series takes on even more meaning when it is launched on the occasion of the 325th anniversary of the formation of Saigon-Cho Lon-Gia Dinh-Ho Chi Minh City (1698-2023) and the 48th anniversary of the liberation of South and the reunification of the country (April 30, 4-April 1975, 30).
The work is divided into two volumes with the chronology of volume I from 1698-1945 and volume II from 1945-2020. In particular, the introductory section provides an overview of the city's natural geography, the prehistoric era of the Funan period, the Thuy Chenla period and the Vietnamese exiles.
| Mr. Nguyen Dinh Tu was born in 1920, in Vo Liet, today Thanh Chi commune, Thanh Chuong district (Nghe An). After the August Revolution, he had time to work as a contributor to the newspaper Doc Lap. He later moved to the South Central region to begin a career and edited and published many history and geography books. |
It can be seen that Nguyen Dinh Tu processed a very abundant amount of material from original French and Chinese books translated into the national language into 214 Vietnamese reference works. Not only has the author carefully organized the topics and topics systematically and scientifically, but also included a lot of relevant and new information in the book, arousing the enthusiasm of readers.
Living two centuries and experiencing many ups and downs in his country's history, Mr. Nguyen Dinh Tu still takes advantage of every moment, every day, to meticulously record valuable documents for posterity. We know that he started learning to play computer keyboards at the age of 90, that he still spends almost 10 hours a day working and adapting to the times…
To date, researcher Nguyen Dinh Tu has published around 60 books such as: Young Phu Yen country, Geography Khanh Hòa, Non Nuoc Ninh Thuận, Interior streets of Ho Chi Minh City, Dictionary of administrative place names in the South, Non Nuoc Quang Tri, Biographies and behavior of Chinese scholars in the South, Collection of street names in Ho Chi Minh City, French colonial regime in Cochinchina (1859-1954), Administrative geography of the southern provinces during the period of French colonization (1859-1954), novel Rebellion of the 12 warlords…
Even though he knew he didn't have much time left, he still ran every hour and every minute to write a book. “Gia Dinh Saigon Ho Chi Minh City – Long Miles of History (1968-2020)” is still not the last book he cherishes.
