Trương Huy San, better known by his pen name Huy Đức, is a Vietnamese journalist, blogger, and author. In 2005–2006 he studied at the University of Maryland under a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship. In 2012, he received a fellowship from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism to study at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Early life Trương Huy San was born in 1962 in Thạch Hà district of Hà Tĩnh province. His parents are farmers prior to joining the Viet Minh: his father joined the Viet Minh and enlisted during the August Revolution, while his mother served as a volunteer laborer for the force during the Indochina War. San is the fifth child in a family of seven. He grew up on the state-run Thạch Ngọc collective farm and attended a local school from primary level through the seventh grade. He completed his eighth and ninth grades at Lý Tự Trọng School in Thạch Hà District.

While a 10th-grade student at Phan Đình Phùng High School in Hà Tĩnh, San volunteered to join the People's Army of Vietnam and commanded an artillery unit during the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War; he was the third member of his family to enlist. He later explained that because his birth certificate listed his date of birth as August 20, 1961, he met the legal requirements for enlistment even though he was actually only 17 years old. San studied in the chemical weapons division of the military from 1980 to 1983; he regarded this period as playing a crucial role in his future writing career. He was admitted to the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1982 and stopped participating in party activities in 2006. He was promoted to the rank of sub-Lieutenant at the age of 21 and subsequently to Lieutenant at the age of 23.

In 1984, San and two colleagues were deployed to a military unit in Cambodia during the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. On the Cambodian battlefield, they were responsible for training cooks, nurses and drivers, while also instructing battalion commanders on how to organize military units and engage in combat. He described his time in the neighboring country as "intense" due to the frequent attacks launched by Pol Pot's forces. In 1987, he left the miliary before being promoted to the rank of Captain; he subsequently worked at the Nhà Bè District Party Office office from August 1987 to December 1988.

Journalistic career Before becoming a journalist, San wrote two non-fiction works, titled Dòng sông cụt for Văn magazine and Anh ấy sẽ trở về for the Văn nghệ quân đội magazine, during his time as a cadre in the Communist Party Office of Nhà Bè District. After his writings and short stories appeared in various other newspapers and magazines—most notably Văn Nghệ—he received offers to work for several newspapers.

He became a journalist based in Ho Chi Minh City. He wrote for several newspapers such as Tuoi Tre, Thanh Nien, and Sai Gon Tiep Thi. Until 2010 he also wrote a blog called Osin, which was ranked as the most popular blog in Vietnam. The blog was critical of the Vietnamese government, attempting to "push the line but not cross the line". In 2009 he was dismissed from his post at Sai Gon Tiep Thi (Saigon Marketing), a state-run newspaper, because of comments on his blog. Since then he has been a freelance journalist.

While studying at Harvard, he published his book Bên Thắng Cuộc (The Winning Side). The two-volume book describes life in Vietnam after the end of the Vietnam War and the reunification of the country. The first volume, Giải Phóng (The Liberation), was published as an e-book in 2012, followed by a hardcover edition. Even before publication he published excerpts and chapters on his Facebook page; the excerpts were widely circulated through the internet. The second volume, Quyền Bính (The Power), was published the same year. The name "The Winning Side" is inspired by a quote from Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Duy: "In every war, whichever side wins, after all/ It's the people who take the fall."

The Vietnamese government has not officially banned the book, but the state-run media has been critical of it. In some cases, the Vietnamese government has seized copies of it and questioned people who had them. Critics have described the book as "perhaps the first critical, comprehensive history of Vietnam since 1975 by someone inside the country." The book ranked number one in the category Southeast Asia History for several weeks on Amazon, and since its publication it is one of the most downloaded electronic Vietnamese books.

Đức is one of many people featured in Ken Burns's series The Vietnam War.

In June 2024, Vietnamese national security police charged him with infringing on national security and due to writing he posted on Facebook, which was deleted on June 2nd with no explanation. He was arrested on the same day and for the same offences as human rights lawyer Trần Đình Triển. He was detained and police received warrants to search his residence and workplace. The 88 Project called the detainment an attack on reformers and freedom of the press, and called on the United States to sanction Vietnamese institutions involved with the charges.

In February 2025, Huy Duc was sentenced to 30 months in prison for Facebook posts that authorities claimed had "negative impacts on social order and safety." His conviction is part of a broader crackdown on dissent in Vietnam, where the government has increasingly targeted online critics and independent journalists.

Works Bên thắng cuộc, Los Angeles, California : OsinBook, 2012. References

Citations

Sources