“Under the Olive Trees” is a bilingual poetry collection featuring poems Nguyen Quang Thieu wrote during a fact-finding trip with Vietnamese writers to the war-scarred lands of the Palestinian people in May 2023.
The collection is a prayer for peace, calling for an awakening of humanity to kindle hope, and a plea for freedom and the good things the Palestinian people deserve.
“Murad’s Stone” by poet Murad Sudani was written in November 2023. In the face of a haunting reality — felt from within every Palestinian, in every pair of eyes yearning to live — poetry emerges and becomes more forceful than ever. The collection is written with all the sorrow and indomitable longing held deep inside a Palestinian.
Speaking at the launch, Saadi Salama, Ambassador of Palestine to Viet Nam, said that in Nguyen Quang Thieu’s work “Under the Olive Tree”, it is possible to see clearly the depth of feeling the Vietnamese people have for the Palestinian people.
“One can see the depth of feeling among Vietnamese people as a whole, and among Vietnamese poets and writers in particular, for the Palestinian people. The longing for peace, independence and freedom is evident throughout Viet Nam. Vietnamese writers do not merely see and hear; they also feel the Palestinian people’s pain on their journey towards independence. The messages and poems shared today by Nguyen Quang Thieu, President of the Viet Nam Writers’ Association, carry a special significance for us — giving us motivation and a sense that we have not been left behind,” the Ambassador said.
Speaking about “Under the Olive Tree”, poet Nguyen Viet Chien said that Nguyen Quang Thieu — one of the most humane and reflective poetic voices in contemporary Vietnamese literature — when coming to Palestine, did not merely observe with the eyes of a poet, but also with the heart of a witness.
“Nguyen Quang Thieu does not write poems to lament or to weep. His poetry is the furious and painful voice of a witness, of someone who refuses to remain silent in the face of injustice. The message running through the poems is like an affirmation: No stream of water can wash away the sins of war. Beauty still exists, but it is surrounded by gunfire, barbed-wire fences and threats,” Nguyen Viet Chien affirmed.
