On December 6 in Hanoi, Vietnam Television, Sunrise Media Joint Stock Company, and GPBank held the award ceremony of the “Life’s Gifts” Short Story Writing Contest.
According to the organizers, the contest set a record in both the number of authors and entries. From its launch in October 2010 until its conclusion on May 31, 2011, the organizers received 700,312 works from 547,230 authors of all ages.
Winners of the “Life’s Gifts” Short Story Writing Contest
After several preliminary rounds, the jury selected 150 works for the finals, from which 17 outstanding stories were honored: two Second Prizes, three Third Prizes, nine Consolation Prizes, and three Friendly Prizes. The organizers announced that this year there was no First Prize.
The two Second Prizes were awarded to talented young 9x writers: Trần Thái Hồng (born 1994), a 12th-grade student at Kim Liên High School in Hanoi, with “Wake Up and Smile”, and Hồ Uyên Sa (born 1991), a student at Hue University of Foreign Languages, with “The Priceless Doll”.
Remarkably, with her story “A Perspective Creates Strength”, Nguyễn Phương Thúy (born 1985), who suffers from brittle bone disease, received both a Consolation Prize and a Friendly Prize.
Speaking at the award ceremony, Meritorious Artist Nguyễn Nhân Lập, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Animation Studio and Chief Director of the “Life’s Gifts” program, said the organizers were truly surprised by the record number of submissions, most of which were of good quality and followed the guidelines.
The contest not only attracted a wide range of participants from across Vietnam, but also received entries from Vietnamese authors living abroad. Many participants submitted large numbers of stories, such as Nguyễn Thị Bình (Hanoi) with 99 entries, and Nguyễn Thị Mai (Hanoi) and Võ Mạnh Thành (Nghe An), each submitting 30 entries—many of them highly creative and literary.
The award-winning works will be adapted into films to be broadcast on VTV3’s “Life’s Gifts” program. A book titled “Life’s Gifts”, featuring all the winning entries and other high-quality works, will also be widely published.
Also this year, the Hanoi Department of Education and Training officially piloted the integration of “Life’s Gifts” films into moral education classes in several primary schools in Hanoi, helping make lessons more engaging, relatable, easier to understand, and easier to remember.
Reporter: Phú Cao