Writer Le Luu started his career with a 26-word article.

This writer of peasant and soldier origin has many works considered classics of wartime literature such as the short story: "The Gunman", the novel "Opening the Forest"... but what truly affirms Le Luu's solid position in the literary world is the trilogy "Cuoi Village Story". (1991), "Waves at the bottom of the river" (1994) and especially "Times of Distant Abode" (1986) have been compared by the literary world as "a life film bearing the painful mark of the times".

Despite his fame, few people know that his writing career was quite difficult. And the funny story is that the writer started his career with a 26-word article that many people still mention when they remember him.

He once told about the time he started writing that he loved writing since he was a child, when he was in 5th grade. At home, he was still passionate about writing dozens of articles and sent them to the provincial newspaper, but never received a response. In 1959, when he turned 17, Le Luu volunteered to join the army. At that time, the young man Le Luu also had many ambitions, thinking that joining the army would allow him to learn, travel a lot to write for the newspaper. So he eagerly wrote and excitedly sent them, but by the 50th article, there was still "no news", no article was published.

But that did not discourage him, Le Luu continued to write diligently, each article was 4-5 pages long and handwritten. Then, the 55th or 56th article, when he wrote about the achievement of killing 380,000 flies of Company 25, Song Thao Group, was published in the newspaper of Military Region 3. The article was only 26 words long, in fact, it was just a short news. When he returned to the Military Region, his comrades knew that he was published in the newspaper and called Le Luu a "journalist", making him blush and keep denying it. However, he was also happy because for the first time, his article was published in the newspaper.

As a souvenir, Le Luu cut out the newspaper clipping and carefully put it in his wallet, and wherever he went, he would take it out to read. As time went by, the newspaper clipping became worn out, but Le Luu knew his 26-word article by heart. At that moment, Le Luu suddenly thought that he had written more than 50 articles of 4-5 pages long but none of them were published. From now on, he would only write very short articles and try. Indeed, from then on, all of Le Luu's short articles were published. Perhaps that was also the motivation for him to write diligently and become a famous writer in the Vietnamese literary world.