Bui Gia Khanh Pham

  

Volume 7 | Issue IV | December 2023

British International School Hanoi ’26

Hanoi, Vietnam

  

My primary academic interests centre around philosophy, maths, and debate, but amidst such an intricate web of logic and numbers, I have always had this soft spot for literature. To me, there is an inherent allure within the words themselves that are independent of their meaning. The moment I stumbled upon The Sorrow of War in my Vietnamese class, I was immediately mesmerised by the poeticness of the prose. From the very first read, this novel felt unlike anything I had encountered before – an inventive diction, an unconventional structure, and a pivotal milestone in Vietnamese literature, for the novel rewrote the narrative of war not from a societal, propagandistic perspective, but from a human standpoint. Further driven by a deep appreciation for my country’s history, I sought to delve into the essence of the novel beyond the language that initially captivated me. Instead of directly analysing texts and offering interpretations that are typical literature classes, writing for The Schola pushed me to ground my approach in frameworks for a critical, systematic examination of the work. It has been a rewarding journey to witness a fragmented piece from a school assignment evolve into a refined paper that made it into a distinguished forum of scholarship. Outside the academic realm, I enjoy dancing, engaging in community projects, and running my literary journal.