Colonial Vietnam through the Eyes of Europeans in the novel by Vietnamese writer Nguyen Suan Khanh «Mother – Mistress of Mountains and Forests»

The subject of the research is the historical novel by Vietnamese writer Nguyen Suan Khanh (1933–2021) "Mother – Mistress of the Mountains and Forests," published in 2005, which describes the sociocultural context of a Vietnamese village at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. One of the key issues of the work is the interaction between France and Vietnam during the period of French colonial conquest. "Mother – Mistress of the Mountains and Forests" occupies a significant place in contemporary Vietnamese literature as a novel that reflects on historical trauma and cultural continuity through the lens of folkloric archetypes, mythological consciousness, and popular beliefs. The work reflects the crisis of traditional religious and philosophical doctrines—Buddhism and Confucianism—against the backdrop of colonial expansion. An important theme of the novel is the perception of colonial Vietnam through the eyes of Europeans. The methodological basis of the research includes a comparative analysis and a cultural-historical approach, which allow for the identification of the peculiarities of the depiction of colonial Vietnam from the European perspective. Two types of European characters have been identified. The first type is characterized by Eurocentric, colonial thinking and a desire to "civilize" the local population. The second type demonstrates respect for Vietnamese culture and seeks dialogue. Their opposition, evaluative judgments, authorial remarks, and narrative decisions have made it possible to reconstruct the author's position regarding the relationship between Vietnam and its former metropolis, as well as the colonial past of the country from the perspective of contemporary Vietnamese identity. The novelty of the work lies in the postcolonial reading of the novel, which goes beyond the binary model of "metropolis – colony." The work itself has not been translated into other languages and is being introduced into scientific discourse for the first time in domestic literary studies. The conclusions drawn may be useful in the field of comparative literature and the study of postcolonial processes in Southeast Asian literature.

Nguyen Xuan Khanh, contemporary Vietnamese literature, historical novel, East and West, Vietnamese identity, French colonial conquest, orientalism, postcolonial discourse, the other, Vietnam and France