Ngo The Vinh was born in 1941 in Thanh Hoa province.

Editor-in-chief of Tinh Thuong (Compassion), a monthly magazine of students of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Saigon.

Chief surgeon of the 81^st Airborne Ranger Group in the ARVN.

Resident physician in SUNY Downstate at Brooklyn, New York.

Ngo The Vinh currently lives in Southern California and is a board certified internist, an attending physician, and an Assistant Clinical Professor at UC-Irvine College of Medicine. 

Published works:

--May Bao (Storm Clouds). Saigon: Song Ma, 1963; California: Van Nghe,    1993.

--Bong Dem (Dark of Night).  Saigon: Khai Tri, 1964.

--Gio Mua (Monsoon Wind).  Saigon: Song Ma, 1965.

--Vong Dai Xanh (The Green Belt).  Saigon: Thai Do, 1971; California: Van Nghe, 1987.

--Mat Tran o Sai Gon (The Battle of Saigon).  California: Van Nghe, 1996.

--Cuu Long Can Dong Bien Dong Day Song (Mekong River Drained Dry, East Sea in Turmoil).  California: Van Nghe, 2000 & 2001. 

The work Cuu Long Can Dong Bien Dong Day Song (CLCD, Van Nghe 2000) by author Ngo The Vinh is a faction -- fiction drawn from factual events -- about the Mekong River, the third longest river in Asia and the twelfth longest in the world. 

The book portrays the Mekong River in its declining years, its past darkly marked with natural disasters and with human destruction, and its future quite uncertain.  In this work, the author brings up many important matters, of utmost concern among them is the environmental issue. 

He outlines the history of the Mekong River, and of the cycle of prosperity and decline experienced by the countries and civilizations connected with this twelfth longest river in the world.  "With regard to the current circumstance of Vietnam, due to a chain reaction caused by a cascade of dams built on the tributaries of the Mekong River in Thailand and Laos, and on its mainstream in Yunnan, there have clearly appeared signs of scorched earth during the dry season in the Mekong delta.  In order to guarantee enough water for the rice basket in the Delta, we have no alternative but to urgently investigate the feasibility of building dams on the tributaries of the Mekong River within the territory of Vietnam." (CLCD, p. 158). 

This work of faction is a more absorbing read than Ivo Andic's The Bridge on the Drina which won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1961.  Embedded in it are all the sentiments of joy and anger, love and hate, together with all issues connected with humanity as a whole, especially the environmental issue.  However, even against such a dark outlook for the Mekong River and in face of Beijing's ambition to extend its control toward the South China Sea, author Ngo The Vinh is still hopeful for "A global order in the upcoming millennium, wherein the superpowers will behave with a greater sense of responsibility, not relying exclusively on their own power as is the case at present. 

And furthermore, happiness for Chinese and Vietnamese peoples will be to co-exist in peace, so that they can together rationally exploit and share natural resources in both the South China Sea and the Mekong River." (CLCD, p. 373). 

The Vietnam question is the major theme in almost all of Ngo The Vinh's works.  With regard to the massacre during the Tet offensive of 1968 as well as that at Son My, he has an appeal to make: "Do not nurture hatred, but at the same time do not allow any room for deception and cover-up.  Following from that, Vietnamese forces of the present as well as in the future must keep alive the memory of the tragedies suffered by the country so that they can avoid repeating such crimes."  (CLCD, p. 330).

Thinking about his native land in that light, he also shows anguish: "If we do not engage in looking backward and meditate on past events, won't we again be faced with the irony that Vietnam, after having once experienced the tragedy of being an outpost of the free world, in a future not far from now may again be honored, for a second time, as an outpost to prevent Chinese expansionism?" (MAT TRAN O SAI GON, Van Nghe 1996, p.180).  Not only is he concerned and worried about the survival of Vietnam, Ngo The Vinh also has dreams and hope for a good future for his homeland.

He says: "In the future, at the start of the new millennium, the Mekong delta will be like a cradle of Vietnamese culture." (CLCD, p.387).  In the same manner displayed by Herman Hess in The Glass Bead Game which won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946, Ngo The Vinh is full of humanity when he writes: "In the limited life span within this impermanent universe, the threat of an uncertain future made me feel more strongly drawn to life and living." (VONG DAI XANH, Thai Do 1971, p. 171).

Ngo The Vinh is a committed writer.  Almost all of his works reflect his care and concern, and his aspiration to make the human world better.

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