Tu Mo

(pen name of Ho Trong Hieu). Born Mar. 14, 1900, in Hanoi. Vietnamese poet and playwright.

During the Vietnamese People’s War of Resistance (1945–54), Tu Mo worked for information organizations of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In 1957 he became deputy chairman of the Association of Literature and Art Workers of Vietnam. He first published his works in 1925. His satirical poems and parodies appeared in the two-volume collection Against the Current (1934–41). Tu Mo’s work is characterized by topicality and elements of the forms of folk poetry.

During the prerevolutionary period, Tu Mo satirized officials and ignorant deputies, while in the postrevolutionary period he struggled against the colonialists and their henchmen. He wrote the satirical poetry collections The Participants of the Resistance Laugh (1948–54), The Laughter of Justice (1958), The Battling Pen (1960), and Blow of the Pen (1961–62). He also wrote comic plays in the traditional Vietnamese folk theater genre of teo, including The Buddhist Monk Strikes the Enemy (1947). He also wrote children’s poetry, including the collection Grandfather and Grandson (1970).