Gender and Environment in Nguyễn Ngọc Tư’s Narratives

This essay analyzes three main themes in environmental fiction by Nguyen Ngoc Tu, Cánh d̵ồng bất tận (Endless Field, 2005) and Khói trời lộng lẫy (Fabulous Clouds in the Sky, 2010): endurance and resignation as female virtues; nature’s resilience in a broken human world; and the connections between the degradation of nature and the oppression of women. The analysis foregrounds the strange coincidence between the fates of women and nature that are both imbued with the identity of the Nam Bộ land. These portrayals of women’s lives raise questions of gender and environmental issues in the interactive and interdependent relationship between politics and culture in Vietnam. Vivid descriptions of human beings and the landscape in Nam Bộ provide a point of departure to consider the gap between the literary practices of South East Asia and Western literary theory. The concept of “place” or “area” in South Vietnam provides an incentive to reevaluate “Asian perspectives” in ecofeminism in a more open and diversified way.