Description
With the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko or Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and the lyrical beauty of Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan,The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Trần family, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War. Trần Diệu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Nội, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the Hồ Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that tore not just her beloved country, but her family apart.
Vivid, gripping, and steeped in the language and traditions of Việt Nam, The Mountains Sing brings to life the human costs of this conflict from the point of view of the Vietnamese people themselves, while showing us the true power of kindness and hope.
About the author:
Born into the Vietnam War in 1973, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai grew up witnessing the war’s devastation and its aftermath. She worked as a street seller and rice farmer before winning a scholarship to attend university in Australia. She is the author of eight books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction in Vietnamese, and her writing has been translated and published in more than 15 countries. She has been honored with some of the top literary awards of Vietnam including the Poetry of the Year 2010 Award from the Hanoi Writers Association. Her debut novel and first book in English, THE MOUNTAINS SING, was awarded a Lannan Literary Awards Fellowship for contribution to peace and reconciliation and BookBrowse Best Debut Award for 2020. It was named a best book of 2020 by more than ten media establishments including NPR. Quế Mai has a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. For more information, visit her at http://www.nguyenphanquemai.com
The BookBrowse Best Debut Award for 2020
A New York Times Editors' Choice Selection
A Winner of the 2020 Lannan Literary Awards Fellowship
A Best Book of the Month/Year according to the New York Times * Washington Post * O, The Oprah Magazine * USA Today * Amazon * PopSugar * Book Riot * Paperback Paris * SHE READS * We Are Bookish * The Millions * NPR’s Book Concierge * Washington Independent Review of Books * NB Magazine * Real Simple * The Buzz Magazine * PopMatters * Global Atlanta * Writer's Bone
Reviews
"Expansive in scope and feeling, The Mountains Sing is a feat of hope, an unflinchingly felt inquiry into the past, with the courageous storytelling of the present."
--Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
"The Mountains Sing is an epic account of Việt Nam's painful 20th century history, both vast in scope and intimate in its telling. Through the travails of one family, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai brings us close to the horrors of famine, war, and class struggle. But in this moving and riveting novel, she also shows us a postwar Việt Nam, a country of hope and renewal, home to a people who have never given up."
--Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Sympathizer
With the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko or Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and the lyrical beauty of Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan,The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Trần family, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War. Trần Diệu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Nội, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the Hồ Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that tore not just her beloved country, but her family apart.
Vivid, gripping, and steeped in the language and traditions of Việt Nam, The Mountains Sing brings to life the human costs of this conflict from the point of view of the Vietnamese people themselves, while showing us the true power of kindness and hope.
About the author:
Born into the Vietnam War in 1973, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai grew up witnessing the war’s devastation and its aftermath. She worked as a street seller and rice farmer before winning a scholarship to attend university in Australia. She is the author of eight books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction in Vietnamese, and her writing has been translated and published in more than 15 countries. She has been honored with some of the top literary awards of Vietnam including the Poetry of the Year 2010 Award from the Hanoi Writers Association. Her debut novel and first book in English, THE MOUNTAINS SING, was awarded a Lannan Literary Awards Fellowship for contribution to peace and reconciliation and BookBrowse Best Debut Award for 2020. It was named a best book of 2020 by more than ten media establishments including NPR. Quế Mai has a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. For more information, visit her at http://www.nguyenphanquemai.com
The BookBrowse Best Debut Award for 2020
A New York Times Editors' Choice Selection
A Winner of the 2020 Lannan Literary Awards Fellowship
A Best Book of the Month/Year according to the New York Times * Washington Post * O, The Oprah Magazine * USA Today * Amazon * PopSugar * Book Riot * Paperback Paris * SHE READS * We Are Bookish * The Millions * NPR’s Book Concierge * Washington Independent Review of Books * NB Magazine * Real Simple * The Buzz Magazine * PopMatters * Global Atlanta * Writer's Bone
Reviews
"Expansive in scope and feeling, The Mountains Sing is a feat of hope, an unflinchingly felt inquiry into the past, with the courageous storytelling of the present."
--Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
"The Mountains Sing is an epic account of Việt Nam's painful 20th century history, both vast in scope and intimate in its telling. Through the travails of one family, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai brings us close to the horrors of famine, war, and class struggle. But in this moving and riveting novel, she also shows us a postwar Việt Nam, a country of hope and renewal, home to a people who have never given up."
--Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Sympathizer