Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Henri Oger - Mechanics and Crafts of the Annamites



Today I bought the recently published new edition of Henri Oger's book(s) with drawings and woodcuts from the early 20th century. I had seen the one of the extremely rare first edition in the collections of the British library and when I stumbled on this new edition in a bookshop next to the post office I just had to buy it! The first edition was only published in 60 copies. The second edition (2000 copies) includes translations from the original Nom and Han character into Vietnamese, French and English as well as a number of chapters about Oger and his works.. The pictures in the books shows a multitude of different crafts as well as gruesome torture scenes, musical instruments, people picking their teeth and loads of other strange, funny and interesting activities! I am very exited that I found it but I haven't got a clue how I will get it back to London, might have to send it separately. Any way if you see it, buy it!

2 comments:

Hi everyone. I'm Ken Trinh. said...

Hi ESBJORN,

So nice to browse your site. I'm a Vietnamese, really happy and surprised when I know there's a foreigner get interest in Vietnamese music.

Keep writing, I'm looking forward to your next entry.

Esbjorn Wettermark said...

I am glad you like it Hung! There will definitely be some more posts soon as I am sending most of the summer in Hanoi this year.