Vietnamese and Western literature. He was a late comer to the group, which by then had established themselves as a powerful platform for Vietnamese intellectuals, publishing romance novels that entertained the crowd alongside satirical works that lambasted both contemporary society and the French administration. Amongst his peers in the group was Thế Lữ, whose fantastical poetry and horror short stories were inspired by French romanticism and Edgar Allan Poe. According to literary critics Hoài Thanh and Hoài Chân, Xuân Diệu borrowed the same inspiration from romanticism, yet he "burned the utopian scenery and ushered the audience back into the real world." They acknowledged Charles Baudelaire's influence on Xuân Diệu, compared aspects of his poetry to Anna de Noailles and André Gide, and judged him as the pinnacle of French-influenced Vietnamese poetry. First Indochina War Between 1938 and 1940, Xuân Diệu lived with poet and alleged partner Huy Cận at 40 Hàng Than Street in Hanoi. After Japan entered French Indochina in September 1940, many members of Xuân Diệu's literary group began to focus entirely on politics, including the founder Nhất Linh. Near the end of the year, Xuân Diệu departed for Mỹ Tho and worked as an official. Some of the remaining members, including Khái Hưng, Hoàng Đạo and Nguyễn Gia Trí, were arrested by the French and imprisoned in the faraway Sơn La Prison, marking the beginning of the demise of the group. When Xuân Diệu returned to Hanoi in 1942, most of the writers with whom he once worked had drifted apart or considered joining the anti-colonial resistance led by Ho Chi Minh. He pursued writing as a full-time career for two years, before joining the revolutionaries in Việt Bắc in 1944. Instead of combatting on the front line, Xuân Diệu stayed behind to write in support of the independence movement. In the memoir Cát bụi chân ai of the writer Tô Hoài, it was also during this time that Xuân Diệu had a few sexual encounters with his comrades, including Tô Hoài himself, and was reprimanded by the commanders. Interwar period After the Việt Minh gained victory in 1954, Xuân Diệu returned to Hanoi and published both as a poet and as a journalist. In 1956, he married 27-year-old director Bạch Diệp, but the relationship was not consummated and the pair quickly separated. While Bạch Diệp was later remarried to another man, Xuân Diệu lived alone in