Vo Van Nhon, Nguyen Bao Chau
University of Social Sciences and Humanities National University Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
ABSTRACT
Even though young adult is a familiar concept, and books for young adults have been widely published and commonly read for more than a century in Vietnam, the concept of “young adult literature” has rarely received adequate academic discussion in Vietnamese literary studies so far. In this article, we will provide a brief literature review of how Western researchers have been looking at young adult literature, from which we attempt to provide our own explanations of the two concepts of young adult and young adult literature that best suit the Vietnamese context. Furthermore, with a historical approach, we also give an overview of the formation and development of young adult literature in Vietnam, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. In addition, we take a comparative approach to examine how Vietnamese writers have changed their exploration of literary themes for young adult during the last century.
Keywords: young adult; young adult literature; young adult literature in Vietnam