Balaban was a conscientious objector in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. In a moment at Harvard which he writes about in his memoir Remembering Heaven's Face,[page needed] he petitioned his draft board to allow him to drop his student deferment to go to Vietnam with the International Volunteer Services, where he taught at a university until it was bombed in the Tet Offensive. He was wounded in the shoulder by shrapnel and evacuated; after his recovery, he continued his alternative service and returned to Vietnam with the Committee of Responsibility to treat war-injured children.[6]
Balaban receiving the Medal for the Cause of Culture, Sports, and Tourism of Viet Nam from the Vietnam Ministry of Culture on December 12, 2008
He left Vietnam in 1969, subsequently testifying on civilian casualties before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy.[7]
In 1971–72, as the war continued, he returned once again to tape, transcribe, and translate the sung oral poetry known as ca dao, resulting in his Ca Dao Viet Nam: Vietnamese Folk Poetry[8] Balaban's first published collection of his own verse, After Our War (1974), was a Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets and nominated for the National Book Award.
In 1999, he became a founder of the Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation, which for twenty years led the digital preservation of ancient texts in Vietnam. In 2000, he released Spring Essence, a collection of poems by Hồ Xuân Hương, an 18th-century poet and the preeminent woman poet of Vietnam. The book included English translations and versions in both the current Vietnamese alphabet and the historical Chữ Nôm writing system.[9]
Balaban has written poetry beyond his experiences in Vietnam. His collection Locusts at the Edge of Summer: New and Selected Poems won the 1998 William Carlos Williams Award.[10] His Words for My Daughter was a National Poetry Series Selection.[11] In 2006, Path, Crooked Path was named an Editor's Choice by Booklist and Best Book of Poetry by Library Journal.
In 2008, he was awarded a medal of appreciation from the Ministry of Culture of Vietnam for his leadership in the restoration of the ancient text collection at the National Library.[12]
Locusts at the Edge of Summer: New and Selected Poems, (Copper Canyon Press, 1997, 2003)
Like Family, (Red Dragonfly Press: Minnesota, 2009)
Path, Crooked Path, (Copper Canyon Press, 2006)
Empires, (Copper Canyon Press, forthcoming October 2019)
Translations
Ca Dao Viet Nam: Vietnamese Folk Poetry, (Unicorn Press, 1980) (Revised edition, Copper Canyon Press, 2003)
Vietnam: A Traveler's Literary Companion, with Nguyen Qui Duc, (Whereabouts Press, 1996)
Spring Essence, The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong, (Copper Canyon Press, 2000)
Nonfiction
With Geoffrey Clifford: Vietnam: The Land We Never Knew, (Chronicle Books, 1989)
Remembering Heaven's Face: A Story of Rescue in Wartime Vietnam, (New York: Simon & Schuster/Poseidon, 1991. pp. 31–34) (Revised edition University of Georgia Press, 2002)
Fiction
The Hawk's Tale, (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988)
^Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Problems Connected with Refugees and Escapees of the Committee on the Judiciary. United States Senate. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. June 24–25, 1969.
^Purdy, Gilbert Wesley (August 2003). "We Redeem What We May". Jacket (23). Retrieved September 19, 2007.