Nhã Ca

Nhã Ca (pen name for Trần Thị Thu Vân; 20 October 1939, Huế, Vietnam) is a Vietnamese-American poet and novelist. Trần Thị Thu Vân grew up in Huế and studied at Đồng Khánh College there. She moved to Saigon in 1960 and married the poet Trần Dạ Từ, with whom she had seven children. She wrote over the years, a little over twenty books, mainly novels, and was the founder of the publishing house Thương Yêu. She took the pseudonym, Nhã Ca, which means "little anthem", from the Song of Solomon in the Bible. In 1975, after Vietnam's reunification, she was identified her as one of ten authors, and the only female, who were blacklisted as a "cultural guerrilla" and she was a political prisoner in jail for two years from 1976. Her husband was also imprisoned for the same charge and sat in prison twelve years, 1977-89. After the husband's release, the eldest son, was able travel to Sweden, where he persuaded the Swedish Pen Club to take up the case with the Swedish government, after which the family received political asylum in Sweden and exit permits. Nha Ca, her husband, and several of their children later moved on to the United States and settled in California in 1992. In the US, the couple founded the newspaper Việt Báo. Nha Ca's subsequent literary output has been limited, though in 2006, she published a novel in four thick volumes, Đường Tự Do (Việt Báo, Westminster 2006).