John Balaban – författare

Based on a true story: A magnificent portrayal of chaos, darkness, and adventure in Asia's Golden Triangle as the war wages in Vietnam Adrift at the end of the Vietnam War, Paul Roberts and his girlfriend, Fay, are arrested at the Burmese-Thai border for smuggling a couple of ounces of hashish. Stranded in a small Thai prison, they become part of a grisly contest played out by opium warlords, corrupt border patrol police, and two AWOL GIs. The war echoes through their intrigues and jailbreak attempts, especially when a regiment of North Vietnamese joins the skirmish.  Transcending the adventure story, John Balaban’s lyric prose conjures beautiful and frightening images, evoking the Golden Triangle’s jungle as well as the complex hazards of the opium trade.

"John Balaban’s sixth collection of poetry considers America in its innate beauty and complex ugliness, in its powerfully healing landscapes and its destructive misadventures. With a compelling lyricism and cinematic imagery, Empires showcases the pervasiveness of the human spirit across a diverse cast of characters, both modern and ancient. From the rubble of the World Trade Center to Washington’s troops crossing the Potomac to powerful insights into the Vietnam War, Balaban’s genius is in connecting the dots of history. Despite the destruction and persecution associated with empires, Balaban illuminates the often overlooked transcendent hope available through poetry, music, and an unwavering connection to the land. Through heart warming elegies, gripping narratives and new translations from several Romanian poets, Balaban’s poems shine a redemptive light amidst the darkness and chaos of changing empires. “In a way that few poets do, John Balaban truly roams the globe—and the centuries. He has his eye on empires, yes, but also on moments when different slices of history collide... His capacious poems enlarge our eyes on the world.” —Adam Hochschild“In these poems, John Balaban plumbs the recent and ancient past. His generous spirit and technical brilliance cast a very bright light. Empires is luminous work.” —Elizabeth Farnsworth"

An essential collection of poetry and prose from an award-winning poet who faced some of the greatest dramas of his time in American history.

John Balaban is an extraordinary writer and storyteller whose prize-winning poetry and prose are informed by a love of languages, deep scholarship, hard travel, and a willingness to confront the violence and sufferings of the world. In this essential collection of his work, the best of his prize-winning poems since 1970 are collected in one place, threaded through with essays that link poetry to Balaban’s extensive travels, whether hitchhiking throughout the United States or wandering the countryside of Vietnam—during wartime—to record and translate folk poetry. 

The result is a remarkable story about a life in poetry. Empathetic, truth-telling, and fiercely perceptive, Passing through a Gate is a literary tour de force. As Maxine Kumin reminds us, “Balaban seems to me our moral spokesperson, our lyricist, our polemicist, exhorter, and consoler: in short, the poet we need.”

Since relations between the U.S. and Vietnam have normalized, many more people are traveling to this exotic country, previously closed to a generation of Western visitors. Vietnam provides one of the first chances for Americans to know the Vietnamese outside the context of war. Vietnamese have been telling stories for thousands of years, in poetry and in song, in Chinese script and then in Vietnamese nôm, and more recently, in novels and short stories. These 17 stories, from contemporary Vietnamese writers living in Vietnam and abroad, take the literary traveler to extraordinary places: from the jungle-clad mountain ranges of the North to the mysterious silence of the old capital along the Perfume River. Proximity of the spirit world, love of family, exhaustion from war, one's Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist obligations, social protest, and the hunger for a better life — these are some of the concerns to be encountered in these thrilling landscapes. Contributors include Nguyen Huy Thiep, Linh Bao, Nguyen Ba Trac, Thich Duc Thien, Ho Anh Thai, Le Minh Khue, Doan Quoc Sy, Vu Bao, Duong Thu Huong, Andrew Q. Lam, Nguyen Qui Duc, Qui The, Bao Ninh, and Pham Thi Hoai.