top of page

Nguyen Qui Duc (Vietnamese: Nguyn Quí Đc; 1958 – 22 November 2023) was a Vietnamese–American radio broadcaster, writer, editor and translator.

Born in Da Lat, Vietnam in 1958, he came to the United States in 1975, returning in the fall of 2006 to live in Hanoi, Vietnam. He was a radio producer and writer from 1979 onwards, working for the British Broadcasting Corporation in London and KALW-FM in San Francisco and as a commentator for National Public Radio. He was the host of Pacific Time, KQED-FM Public Radio's national program on Asian and Asian American Affairs, from 2000 to 2006. His essays have been published in The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, The New York Times Magazine, The San Francisco Examiner, The San Jose Mercury News and other newspapers. Other essays, poems, and short stories have appeared in City Lights Review, Salamander, Zyzzyva, Manoa Journal, Van, Van Hoc, and Hop Luu, as well as in several anthologies such as Under Western Eyes, Watermark, and Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace.

Nguyen Qui Duc was the author of Where the Ashes Are: The Odyssey of a Vietnamese Family, and the translator of the novella Behind The Red Mist by Ho Anh Thai, (Curbstone Press, 1997). He was also co-editor, with John Balaban, of Vietnam: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press, 1995), and Once Upon A Dream, The Vietnamese American Experience, (Andrews and McMeel, 1995). His translation of The Time Tree, Poems by Huu Thinh, (Curbstone Press, 2004), with George Evans, was a finalist for the 2004 Translation Prize by the Northern California Book Reviewers Association.

Nguyen died from cancer of the brain, lungs and abdomen on 22 November 2023.
 
Nguyen Qui Duc was born in Da Lat and graduated from university with a major in communications in San Francisco. After teaching in Indonesia in the early 1980s, he worked for 2 years for the BBC's Far East Department in London, then returned to the US to work in the media industry, collaborating with public radio station KALW and writing articles. for the San Francisco Examiner , Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly , Los Angeles Times , San Jose Mercury News , etc. He also worked as an editor for the national radio system National Public Radio (NPR), receiving the Association's Excellence Award. Overseas Press Club of America after returning to Vietnam to do reportage in 1989. After a period of collaborating with many media agencies serving Vietnamese people and communities minority in New York, Texas and California, he returned to San Francisco to work as editor and news anchor on Pacific Time , a nationwide radio program specializing in Asia. In 2001, he was selected by the media agency “A Media” as one of the “25 Most Notable Asian Americans”.

Nguyen Qui Duc is the author of the memoir Where the Ashes Are (Addison-Wesley, 1994), and co-editor of two anthologies Vietnam: A Travelers' Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press) and Once Upon A Dream (Andrew & McMeel). He is the translator of Behind the Red Mist (Ho Anh Thai) and The Time Tree (Huu Thinh), the 2003 Translation finalist of the California Literary Critics Association. The stories and poems he translated by many domestic and foreign writers and poets such as Phung Nguyen, Nguyen Huy Thiep, Le Minh Khue, Nguyen Ba Trac, Mai Kim Ngoc, Trinh Cong Son, etc. were published in many magazines and newspapers. Art collections such as Zyzzyva , Manoa Journal , Watermark , etc. His works have been published in Hop Luu , Literature , Literature, Under Western Eyes , Vestiges of War , Manoa Journal , Salamander ... In the early 1990s, he is the founder of the writing group Ink & Blood , encouraging domestic and international dialogue between writers and artists of many generations, organizing many talks, painting exhibitions, film screenings, introducing books and works, and staging the play A Soldier Named Tony , adapted from the short story by Le Minh Khue. In 1995, he was invited to be a resident artist at the Villa Montalvo Art Center. Most recently, in 2005, television report China: Shanghai NightsHis work, made for FrontlineWorld/Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), received the Edward R. Murrow Award for Best TV Interpretation or Documentary on International Affairs from the Overseas Press Association of the United States, and He received professional awards from the UC Berkeley sociology department and the Alexander Gerbode Foundation.

Awards
Nguyen was awarded the Overseas Press Club's Citation of Excellence for his reports from Viet Nam for NPR in 1989, and in 1994, he was artist-in-residence at the Villa Montalvo Estates for the Arts, where he wrote the play A Soldier Named Tony D., based on a short story by Lê Minh Khuê, and produced in 1995 by EXIT Theatre at Knuth Hall, San Francisco. In 2001, Nguyen was named One of 30 Most Notable Asian Americans by A-Media. His documentary on Chinese youths, Shanghai Nights, was part of PBS Frontline/World series that was awarded the 2004 Edward R. Murrow Award of Excellence in Television Documentary from the Overseas Press Club of America,[4] and the same year, he also received a fellowship for outstanding achievements from the Alexander Gerbode Foundation. In October 2006, he received the Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists.

bottom of page