Accompanying the delegation were Le Minh Hung, Secretary of the Party Central Committee and Head of the Central Organization Commission; Trinh Van Quyet, Secretary of the Party Central Committee and Head of the Central Commission for Information, Education and Mass Mobilization; General Phan Van Giang, Minister of National Defense; General Luong Tam Quang, Minister of Public Security; Pham Gia Tuc, Secretary of the Party Central Committee and Chief of the Party Central Office; and Tran Luu Quang, Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee.
During the visit, Party General Secretary To Lam warmly inquired about the health of researcher Nguyen Dinh Tu and presented him with Tet gifts. Ho Chi Minh City Party Secretary Tran Luu Quang also offered Tet gifts to the researcher.
On this occasion, Ho Chi Minh City leaders directed local authorities to arrange an apartment for Mr. Nguyen Dinh Tu to support his daily life and ongoing research.
The city will also provide him with a computer to support his work and allow him to continue contributing his intellect to the city.
Researcher Nguyen Dinh Tu was born on March 12, 1920, in Thanh Chi Commune, Thanh Chuong District, Nghe An Province (now Thanh Qua Commune, Nghe An Province). He has six children and currently lives with the family of his fourth son in Binh Thanh Ward. He is well known for more than 60 works spanning historical novels, historical research and local geography.
During the resistance war against French colonialism, he was a contributor to the Doc Lap (Independence) Newspaper. After 1954, he migrated to the South and worked for the Land Administration Office of Phu Yen Province in 1962 and Khanh Hoa Province in 1974.
Moving to Ho Chi Minh City after 1975, he earned a living repairing bicycle tires at Gate No. 6 of the Phu Nhuan railway station.
When his children grew up, he returned to his academic passion, regularly reading and researching materials on the Central and Southern regions at the National Archives Center II.
In 1996, he was invited by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture and Information to serve as a standing member of the city’s Council for Street Naming and Renaming. He was the one who proposed naming Hoang Sa (the Paracel Islands) and Truong Sa (the Spratly Islands) streets for two roads along the Nhieu Loc–Thi Nghe Canal.
Researcher Nguyen Dinh Tu has received numerous awards and honors, including the Third-class Labor Order in 2024; the medal “For the Cause of Vietnamese Historiography” in 2017; the Silver Prize for Best Book (Vietnam Publishers Association Book Awards, 2009) for Dictionary of Southern Vietnam Administrative Place Names; the A Prize at the National Book Awards in 2018 for his series the French Colonial Regime in Cochinchina (1859–1954); the Tran Van Giau Science Award in 2023; and the A Prize at the National Book Awards in 2024 for Gia Dinh – Saigon – Ho Chi Minh City: A Long Historical Journey (1698–2020).
He was honored as a Lifetime Reading Culture Ambassador by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture and Sports.
