Addressing the seminar, Dr Tran Doan Lam, former director of The Gioi Publishing House, said that Vietnam attending the event as a guest of honour at Venezuela’s biggest cultural event of the year proved that the two countries, despite being far apart geographically but very close in terms of love for reading culture, share similar history with aspiration for freedom, independence, self-reliance, courage and patriotism.
Lam presented an overview of the main stages of development of the writing and publishing industry in Vietnam, from moc ban (woodblocks) printing to making use of the do (poonah) trees to make the unique paper suitable for printing and writing in about the 2nd century BC, or the creation of the Nom script in literary works in the 10th century, to the birth of world-renowned classical literary works such as the Tales of Kieu by Nguyen Du in the 18th century.
The Vietnamese speaker said that in the Middle Ages, there were villages specialising in book printing with wooden planks, mainly near the Thang Long Citaldel (now Hanoi). Among them, 3,050 woodblocks preserved in Vinh Nghiem Pagoda in the northern province of Bac Giang were recognised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as the World Documentary Heritage in the Memory of the World Programme.
Vietnam has had over 60 publishing houses since 1952, plus about 1,500 printing establishments and 13,700 bookstores across the country. Every year, on the occasion of Vietnam Book Day (April 21), major book fairs are held in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, attracting the participation of Vietnamese and international publishers.
At the event, President of the Venezuela-Vietnam Friendship Association Carolus Wimmer expressed his desire to cooperate with the The Gioi Publishing House to give more Vietnamese books to Venezuelan readers to meet their demand for studying the history, culture, country and people of Vietnam.
