Phạm Xuân Nguyên (born 15 May 1958), better known by his pen name Ngân Xuyên, is a Vietnamese writer and literary translator.
Phạm Xuân Nguyên was born in Nghá» An Province. He did his early education in neighbouring HàTénh Province, where in grade 6 and again in grade 10 he won district and provincial awards for writing. He studied Russian as his foreign language in high school, and continued learning it as a student in the literature department of the University of Hanoi (', now part of the Vietnam National University, Hanoi). He interrupted his university studies to serve in the People's Army of Vietnam from 1978 to 1982, and was stationed in Ho Chi Minh City. During that period, he began teaching himself French, and had his first translations of French poetry published in the newspaper Tiá»Ân Phong. He went on to become chairman of the Hanoi Writers' Association (Há»Âi NhàvÃÂn HàNá»Âi).
Phạm Xuân Nguyên speaks Russian, French, and English, and has translated works from all of those languages into Vietnamese. He was first exposed to the works of Milan Kundera in their Russian translations in the Union of Russian Writers journal Foreign Literature (ëû), and himself translated Immortality (which was originally in Czech) into Vietnamese from the Russian version.
After he spent more than thirty years translating the works of others under his pen name, his first book of his own under his real name, NhàvÃÂn nhð Thá» Ná» (meaning "A Writer like Thá» Ná»Â"), was published in 2014. The title is a reference to the character Thá» Ná» in Nam Cao's 1941 short story ChàPhèo, a woman who is well known for her unattractive appearance. NhàvÃÂn nhð Thá» Ná» is a collection of essays of literary criticism, discussing fifty-one Vietnamese writers including Nam Trân, Thế Lữ, Hải Triá»Âu, Hoài Thanh, Nguyá» n Tuân, Trðáng Tá»Âu, BÃÂch Khê, Xuân Diá»Âu, Tá» Hữu, Nguyá» n Huy Tðá»Âng, Nguyá» n Hữu ÃÂang, Hoàng Cầm, Trần Dần, Lê ÃÂạt, Phùng Quán, Bùi Ngá»Âc Tấn, Nguyá» n Xuân Khánh, Dðáng Tðá»Âng, Bảo Ninh, Nguyá» n Quang LáºÂp, and Vi Thùy Linh. Nguyên stated that it took him so long to come out with the book because he was too lazy to collect his previous essays and edit them into a coherent whole; in particular, he mentioned the World Cup season as one of the various reasons for his delays in submitting the final version to the publisher Nhã Nam for printing. Editor Diá»Âu Thủy stated that the whole process took more than four years, and that at one time she even jokingly threatened to burn down Nguyên's house in an effort to get him to submit a draft.
Full citations of translated works: