Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communication is concerned about the popularity of ‘oversentimental sex fiction of Chinese origin’ among young Vietnamese people and is trying to stop the pulp novels’ sale and publication in the country.

Vietnamese publishers typically acquire the publishing rights to the novels and then run them through translation software before manually editing them so that they read properly in Vietnamese.

According to Vietnam’s Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper there are two different kinds of erotic novel that are popular with Vietnamese teens and young adults.

‘One comprises shoddily written soppy stories which depict promiscuous characters and their casual sexual relationships,’ the newspaper says.

‘The other is those in which the writers make it a point to describe sex scenes between characters in great, obscene detail … Among hugely popular stories are those depicting in great depth homosexual relationships.’

The erotic pulp novel market seems to be a very lucrative one for Vietnamese publishers with some books retailing for as much as $US28.

Ministry of Information and Communications publishing department director Chu Van Hoas told Tuoi Tre that his department was increasing its efforts to deter people from publishing this sort of material either in print or online in Vietnam.

However rather than shutting down publishers or websites the government intends to level penalties on those who publish sexually graphic writings and encourage online forums to more closely monitor the kind of material published by users.