Late Vietnamese poet and writer Suong Nguyet Anh is being featured by Google Doodles on Wednesday to mark the first publication of Nu Gioi Chung (Women’s Bell), Vietnam’s first women’s newspaper where Anh was the chief editor.
The doodle, a temporary alteration of the logo on Google’s homepages, was rolled out only in Vietnam, incorporating apricot blossoms and an apricot color palette in honor of one of Anh’s most well-known poems centered around apricot blossoms.
It was illustrated by Hanoi-based guest artist Camelia Pham, according to the search engine’s archives.
Anh was born on March 8, 1864 in the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre.
Her father is Nguyen Dinh Chieu, a patriotic teacher, physician, and poet of southern Vietnam in the second half of the 19th century, who was recognized as a UNESCO World Cultural Celebrity in November 2021.
Chieu’s ‘Luc Van Tien,’ written in the 1850s, is one of the two most celebrated Vietnamese epic poems, along with Nguyen Du’s ‘Truyen Kieu’ in the early 19th century.
Anh became the first female editor-in-chief in Vietnam when she started writing for the Nu Gioi Chung newspaper in Saigon, the old name of Ho Chi Minh City, under the pen name Suong Nguyet Anh, meaning ‘Widowed Nguyet Anh.’
The first publication of Nu Gioi Chung was published on this day in 1918.
Many of the newspaper’s issues spoke about women’s roles in Vietnamese culture and society.
Anh was a pioneer for women writers and editors in Vietnam and paved the way for generations to come.
There are several streets named after her in cities like Ho Chi Minh, Da Lat in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, and Vung Tau in southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province.
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