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Winner of the 2020 BookBrowse Debut Award
The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multi-generational tale of the Trần family, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War. "Both vast in scope and intimate in its telling ... Moving and riveting." - Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
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.
The Mountains Sing is celebrated Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai's first novel in English.
From the Author
"My publisher at Algonquin Books forwarded me the news of my first book in English, The Mountains Sing, winning BookBrowse's Best Debut Award for 2020 and I sat there crying.
When I was growing up in Vietnam, as I labored on rice fields and sold things on streets, I escaped into books I had read and stories I made up in my mind, and dreamed of becoming a writer. Thank you so much for enabling my childhood dream to become a reality. Thank you for creating space on your bookshelf and in your heart for stories about Vietnamese people – stories which have been neglected, buried, or erased. BookBrowse's Debut Award shows me that kindness and compassion exists.
My sincere thanks to you, to the many BookBrowse subscribers who voted for a novel that comes from the faraway land of Vietnam, to BookBrowse publisher Davina Morgan-Witts, and to the BookBrowse team. May we read more about each other's experiences so that humans love humans more, so that one day there will be no war on earth."
-- Quế Mai
Pronunciation Guide
Hà Nội, 1972–1973
Grandma is holding my hand as we walk to school. The sun is a large egg yolk peeking through a row of tin-roofed houses. The sky is as blue as my mother's favorite shirt. I wonder where my mother is. Has she found my father?
I clutch my jacket's collar as the wind rips through the air, swirling up a dust cloud. Grandma bends, putting her handkerchief against my nose. My school bag dangles on her arm as she cups her palm against her face.
We resume walking as soon as the dust settles. I strain my ears but hear no bird. I search, but there isn't a single flower along our path. No grass around us, just piles of broken bricks and twisted metal.
"Guava, be careful." Grandma pulls me away from a bomb crater. She calls me by my nickname to guard me from evil spirits she believes hover above the earth, looking for beautiful children to kidnap. She said that my real name, Hương, which means "fragrance," would attract them.
"When you come ...
Here are some of the comments posted about The Mountains Sing in our legacy forum.
You can see the full discussion here.
According to Huong, proverbs are the essence of Vietnamese wisdom. Did the proverbs resonate with you?
I really liked the proverbs. I felt they helped promote understanding of the culture of the Vietnamese people. - PKH
Dieu Lan believes that no matter the circumstances "no one has the right to take away the life of another human being." Do you agree with her statement? What's your take on forgiveness?
I do agree that "no one has the right to take the life of another human being." But there may be instances when killing cannot be avoided. This reminds me of the commandment "Thou shalt not..." In Hebrew, it actually reads "... - bettyt
How does Grandma Dieu Lan help her children after their return? What might her relationships with her children reveal about family relationships in Viet Nam?
After I finished this book, I took a long walk and ruminated on the strength of mother love. I just returned from a visit to 2 of my daughters who had babies within 2 days of each other. As I grow older, my mother love becomes stronger, not only ... - debra
How important do you think music and poetry are in the Vietnamese culture? How important are they in your own culture?
So very important and are really the history that is passed down and that is what Grandma Dieu Lan did. All cultures have a variation of this, but in this digital age much is being lost because who can preserve a text, a tweet, or a snapchat? ... - MimiJo
How is the Viet Nam portrayed in The Mountains Sing similar to or different from the Viet Nam you already knew?
I knew very little about the lives of the Vietnamese people throughout the war. This was an eye-opener on the suffering the people there encountered. - bettyt
This story is beautifully and compellingly told by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, whose family lived through Vietnam's 20th-century history, starting with the land reform, Communist rule and the Vietnam War (Margaret A). It seems odd to note that a book about such painful events is "easy to read," but this poet, essayist and novelist tells her characters' story with clarity and beautiful language (Karen S)...continued
Full Review (531 words)
(Reviewed by First Impressions Reviewers).
The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế is set against the backdrop of several decades in Northern Vietnam, including the period from 1945 to 1976 when it was an independent state known as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). This was a time of extraordinary hardship brought about by factors related to shifts in political power and the struggle for Vietnamese self-governance, with a significant one of these factors being the land reform movement. Land reform measures in North Vietnam were initiated in 1953 by Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Lao Dong, the Vietnamese Workers' Party of the DRV, and lasted until 1956. The ideology of the Lao Dong was based on facets of Chinese communism, as well as Soviet Marxism and Leninism. Their ...
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