Short answers, pulled from the story.
Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Thien Buddhist monk, peace activist, poet, and author born on the 11th of October 1926 in Hue, Vietnam, who died on the 22nd of January 2022 at age 95. He is known as the "father of mindfulness" and is historically recognized as the main inspiration for engaged Buddhism. He founded the Plum Village Tradition and was a major influence on Western practices of Buddhism.
Martin Luther King Jr. nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize because of his advocacy for peace during the Vietnam War and his philosophy of nonviolence. In his nomination letter, King wrote: "I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize than this gentle monk from Vietnam." The Nobel committee did not make an award that year.
Plum Village Monastery is a Buddhist monastery that Thich Nhat Hanh and Chan Khong founded in 1982 in the Dordogne region near Bordeaux in southern France. It is the largest Buddhist monastery in Europe and America, with over 200 monastics and more than 10,000 visitors a year.
Engaged Buddhism is a movement that promotes the individual's active role in creating social change, rooted in Buddhist principles. Thich Nhat Hanh coined the term in his book "Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire", published in 1967. He credited the 13th-century Vietnamese Emperor Tran Nhan Tong with originating the underlying concept.
Thich Nhat Hanh was exiled from South Vietnam in 1966 after he expressed opposition to the Vietnam War and refused to take sides in the conflict. Both the North and South Vietnamese governments exiled him, and he received asylum in France. He was not permitted to return to Vietnam until 2005, after 39 years in exile.
In September and October 2009, a standoff at Bat Nha monastery ended when authorities cut the power and conducted police raids augmented by mobs, who used sticks and hammers to break in and remove hundreds of monks and nuns. Senior monks were placed under house arrest without charges. The crisis followed a 2008 interview in which Nhat Hanh made statements about the Dalai Lama that his followers believe prompted Chinese officials to pressure the Vietnamese government.