Vũ Trọng Phụng

Phụng wrote prolifically during the 1930s, and "produced a body of writing that", according to historian Peter B. Zinoman, "stands today as the single most remarkable individual achievement in modern Vietnamese literature.

[3] In 1937, Phụng wrote Lục Xì, a now-classic reportage (Vietnamese: phóng sự) on female sex work in colonial Hanoi.

[4] It was based on his observations of the practice and regulation of sex work in the city, as well as his visits to the municipal dispensary (Vietnamese: nhà lục xì, lit.

[4] In Lục Xì, Phụng’s view is not simply that sex work was immoral, but that the outsize presence of sex work in Hanoi was a symptom of larger problems—such as exploitative or ineffectual colonial policies, materialistic attitudes, poverty, and the spread of venereal diseases—all of which stood in stark contrast to French claims that Vietnam was prospering under colonial rule.

The novel contained a fictionalized account of how an upper-class woman becomes a sex worker, written in the style of social realism.