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Translator donates 18,200 books

After 20 years abroad, 68-year-old translator Nguyen Tien Van has returned to Viet Nam and granted his collection of 18,200 rare and highly valuable books to the HCM City Institute for Social Research.

Following an agreement with the People’s Committee, the Institute will set up a library with 16 eight-level bookshelves to house Van’s collection of works in Vietnamese, English, Chinese, German and French.

Associate Prof Pham Xuan Bien, director of the Institute, said he appreciated Van’s generosity. "This is a useful source of documents for studying and consulting. We will try to open the library to serve the readers as soon as possible," Bien says. "We will arrange computers and modern equipment in the reading room. This is a good chance for readers to expand their knowledge in various genres, including literature, philosophy, history, sociology and linguistics."

There are many valuable books in Van’s collection, including 32 volumes of Encyclopedia Brittannica and 56 volumes of Great Books of the West.

Van was born in 1940 in Ha Noi but has lived in Canada since 1985. He never had the opportunity to attend university, but instead educated himself by reading books, which eventually led him to be a translator of German, French, Chinese and English.

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