Nguyễn Quang Thiều poet, writer, playwright, translator, was born in 1957 in Ha Tay province, Northern Vietnam, and educated at Hanoi University in Hanoi where he later has been based. He began to write poems in 1982 but not published until 1990, after a period of five years (1984-1989) he spent abroad, in Cuba, to study Spanish and English. In 1990, he published his debut poetry collection “Ngoi nha tuoi 17”. His second collection of poetry “Su mat ngu cua lua”, followed in 1992, won the prominent Writers’ Association National Award for poetry in 1993. In 1997, “The Women Carry River Water”, a translation version of his poetry collection “Nhung nguoi dan ba ganh nuoc song”, co-translated and edited by Martha Collins and himself, was published bilingually in facing-text format by University of Massachusetts Press (Martha Collins is a professor at University of Massachusetts, Boston). The book has won him the following year the award by National Translation Association of America in 1998. “The women carry river water” is believed to be the first English translation of a poetry collection by a Vietnamese writer of the post-1975 generation (1975 marks the fall of Saigon). A number of poems in the collection have appeared in many literary magazines abroad. Also in 1997 and 1998, two collections of his short stories were translated into French and published in France: La fille du Fleuve (l’Aube, 1997) and “La petite marchande de vermicelles” (l’Aube, 1998). Nguyen Quang Thieu has also been interested in movie and theater, wrote a number of dramatic pieces which were staged, and many of which have been made into movies. Along with his plays, his novel “Ke am sat canh dong” was also made into a movie titled “Chuyen lang Nho” by Vietnam Television. The movie was aired in 1998 via VTV channels. His publications include poetry collections, novels, short stories and plays. Nguyen Quang Thieu is living in Vietnam.