Ngô Xuân Diệu (; February 2, 1916 – December 18, 1985) was a Vietnamese poet, journalist, short-story writer, and literary critic, best known as one of the prominent figures of the twentieth-century Thơ mới (New Poetry) Movement. Heralded by critics as "the newest of the New Poets", Xuân Diệu rose to popularity with the collection Thơ thơ (1938), which demonstrates a distinct voice influenced by Western literature, notably French symbolism. Between 1936 and 1944, his poetry was characterized by a desperation for love, juxtaposed with a desire to live and to experience the beauty of the world. After joining the Vietnamese Communist Party in 1945, the themes of his works shifted towards the Party and their resistance against the French and the Americans. When he died in 1985, he left behind about 450 poems, as well as several short stories, essays, and literary criticisms. Although his love poems use expressions and pronouns that are more commonly associated with heterosexual relationships, Xuân Diệu was confirmed by many, including his close friends, to be gay. According to the writer Tô Hoài, his homosexuality was known amongst his fellow soldiers during their time in the revolutionary base, which had at some point led to admonishments from the military. To this day, the impact of his sexual orientation on his poetry remains a topic of discussion. Life Ngô Xuân Diệu was born in his mother's hometown of Gò Bồi in Phước Hòa Commune, Tuy Phước District, Bình Định Province. His father was Ngô Xuân Thọ, and his mother was Nguyễn Thị Hiệp. Due to Vietnamese traditions, only the hometown of a child's father would be counted as the hometown of the child, thus his official hometown was the village of Trảo Nha in Can Lộc District, Hà Tĩnh Province. Later in his life, he would use the name of the village as a pseudonym. Xuân Diệu lived in Tuy Phước District until he was eleven years old, when he traveled southward to study in Quy Nhơn. Entry into literature In 1936, Xuân Diệu was enrolled in the lycée Khải Định in Huế, where he met the young poet Huy Cận and received his baccalauréat in 1937. He then left for Hanoi, where he studied law and joined the left-wing Self-Strengthening Literary Union (Tự Lực văn đoàn), mostly composed of young Vietnamese writers who studied under the colonial education system and were well-versed in both