The Tự Lực văn đoàn ("Self-Strengthening literary group" or "Self-Help", in chu Han 自力文團) was a pro-independence literary group in colonial Vietnam in the 1930s.
History
The group was founded in 1932-1933 by Nhất Linh and Khái Hưng, who started to publish the weekly magazine Phong Hóa ("Mores") and later Ngày Nay ("Today"). For a period the Tự Lực văn đoàn group were at the forefront of new developments in journalism, the "New Poetry," and the introduction of realism in the novels and stories serialised in Phong Hóa. Novels serialized in Phong Hóa were later published complete in the Self-Strengthening publishing series. The group was identified as anti-French and, for example, excluded from French-organized literary and art conferences.
The groups activities coincided with the emergence of Vietnam's feminist movement, and the Tự Lực văn đoàn's novels often described - under the tenets of realism - the traditional obligations of women.