NGUYỄN TRƯƠNG QUÝ was born in 1977 in Hanoi. He obtained a Bachelor's degree in the architecture and a Master of the Media and Communications Management. After many years working for some newspapers and the Tre Publishing House, he now becomes a freelance writer and painter. Trương Quý was nominated for the prize “Bùi Xuân Phái – Vì tình yêu Hà Nội” (For the love of Hanoi).
His books include: Tự nhiên người Hà Nội (Be yourself as Hanoian people, please, 2004), Ăn phở rất khó thấy ngon (Very difficult to find pho delicious, 2008), Hà Nội là Hà Nội (Hanoi is Hanoi, 2010), Xe máy tiếu ngạo (The wandering motorcycle, 2011), Còn ai hát về Hà Nội (Does anyone else sing about Hanoi? 2013), Dưới cột đèn rót một ấm trà (Under the lampost, pouring a teapot, 2013), Mỗi góc phố một người đang sống (Each street corner a person is living, 2015), Lê la quà vặt (Hanoi eat around, with Đặng Hồng Quân, 2017), Ăn quà xuyên Việt (Vietnam eat around, with Đặng Hồng Quân, 2017), Một thời Hà Nội hát – Tim cũng không ngờ làm nên lời ca (A nostalgic singing time in Hanoi - The heart also did not expect to make lyrics, 2018)
“I am often interested in the adaptations of literature into other forms, such as music, theatre, cinema or the reverse, the exploitation of other art texts into literature. I know it’s called intercultural texts. Perhaps because I do various works all at once, and writing is the nuclear energy that somehow manipulates these other works, which is, as Vietnamese people mock themselves, “ if not good vertically, then good horizontally”. To me, these links do make writing more exciting and furthermore, less boring. Because the work of writing easily makes us writers depressed.
To me, every journey of writing is a mental wandering. I wander through the research texts as if I was wandering to collect chestnuts. Sometimes I happen to find treasures. I rummage through my experiences and memories the way one unfolds a photo album. Sometimes I am amazed to meet my forgotten impressions. I am a writer who stitches together the past and the present. I know that I belong to a generation who will have to deal with many historical narratives of this country. My writing, in some ways, is not separate from my need to move, even though I write a lot about the dear place where I live - Hanoi. Perhaps it's essential for writers to defamiliarize their surrounding realities to find new angles for their creative inspiration. The most challenging question to me when it comes to writing is: The strangeness that I found, to what extent could it be strange? Am I different from my yesterday self? Each writing day is a journey to find another me.”
