Vietnam Women’s Publishing House has released a two-volume Vietnamese translation of Anna Karenina by Lê Đức Mẫn, working from Russian. VnExpress reports that the edition arrived in early November after a project he began in 2019.
A new edition within a longer translation history
The report recalls Vũ Ngọc Phan's newspaper translation in 1937, Mạc Thái Phong's 1973 version through French, and translations by Nhị Ca and Dương Tường published in 1978 through English and French.
The new edition's direct use of Russian identifies its source language. Mẫn acknowledged the achievements of earlier translators and described his work as the best he could produce within his own abilities.
He began studying Russian in 1960, spent many years teaching and has translated more than 40 literary works from the language. That career provides context for the undertaking rather than a substitute for reading the finished text.
Returning to Tolstoy
Written and published between 1873 and 1877, the novel follows Anna's relationship with Karenin and Vronsky while exploring family, social standing and individual freedom in nineteenth-century Russian aristocratic society.
VnExpress also notes the novel's continuing life in education, publishing and screen adaptations. Mẫn headed the Russian translation department at Hanoi's foreign-language university for more than 20 years before retiring in 2002. In 2017, the Vietnam Writers' Association honoured his translation of Aleksandr Griboedov's Woe from Wit. The new Anna Karenina edition now brings that long engagement with Russian literature to another group of readers.