{"id":21820,"date":"2013-09-16T08:33:31","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T12:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=21820"},"modified":"2015-08-17T09:54:47","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T13:54:47","slug":"author-profile-kim-thuy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author-profile-kim-thuy\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Profile: Kim Th\u00fay [in Bloom]"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"Kim<\/a>Kim Th\u00fay\u2019s Ru<\/em>: An Apple for the Reader<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ah, well . . . better start with true confessions: my words appear on the back cover of the U.S. edition (at least the first printing) of Vietnamese Canadian author Kim Th\u00fay\u2019s debut novel, Ru<\/em><\/a>. The blurb is excerpted from my starred review<\/a> in the August 15, 2012 issue of Library Journal<\/em>: \u201cThis extraordinary first novel unfolds like ethereal poetry . . . [an] intricate, mesmerizing narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

So now, you\u2019re fully aware of my publicly admiring bias for the novel. And clearly, I\u2019m not alone. By the time Ru<\/em> hit U.S. shelves in November 2012 (translated from the original French), it had already earned numerous, important, global accolades for its first-time author. After multiple lives as a refugee, interpreter, translator, lawyer, and restaurateur, Th\u00fay was 41 when she \u201cbloomed\u201d with the initial publication of Ru<\/em> in Canada in October 2009.<\/p>\n

Success came quickly and broadly, with editions that appeared in 20 countries: nationally, Ru was shortlisted for Canada\u2019s prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize; internationally, it was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. The original French debut won Canada\u2019s coveted Governor General\u2019s Literary Award for Fiction in 2010, only to reappear two years later on the shortlist for the Governor General\u2019s Literary Award for Translation when the English-language edition, translated by the award-winning Sheila Fischman, appeared in 2012. \u201cThis is an exemplary autobiographical novel. Never is there the slightest hint of narcissism or self\u2011pity,\u201d read the Governor General\u2019s Literary Award jury citation upon announcing Ru<\/em> the 2010 winner. \u201cThe major events in the fall of Vietnam are painted in delicate strokes, through the daily existence of a woman who has to reinvent herself elsewhere. A tragic journey described in a keen, sensitive and perfectly understated voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

That enigmatic single-word title is as multilayered as the slender novel\u2019s elliptical prose: \u201cRu\u201d means \u201ca small stream and, figuratively, a flow, a discharge \u2013\u00a0of tears, blood, of money\u201d in French; in Vietnamese, pronounced quite differently but sharing the same spelling, \u201cru\u201d is a \u201clullaby, to lull.\u201d \u201cRu\u201d is \u201cthe most beautiful word in our [Vietnamese] language,\u201d Th\u00fay told Vinh Nguyen in an interview for Diacritics<\/em><\/a>, which named Ru the first-ever Vietnamese Canadian novel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came into the world during the Tet Offensive, in the early days of the Year of the Monkey. . . . The purpose of my birth was to replace lives that had been lost,\u201d Ru\u2019s narrator introduces herself.<\/p>\n

My name is Nguy\u1ec5n An T\u1ecbnh, my mother\u2019s name is Nguy\u1ec5n An T\u1ec9nh. My name is simply a variation on hers because a single dot under the i differentiates, distinguishes, disassociates me from her. . . . With these almost interchangeable names, my mother confirmed that I was the sequel to her, that I would continue her story.<\/p>\n

The History of Vietnam, written with a capital H, thwarted my mother\u2019s plans. History flung the accents on our names into the water when it took us across the Gulf of Siam thirty years ago. It also stripped us our names of their meaning, reducing them to sounds at once strange. . . . In particular, when I was ten years old it ended my role as an extension of my mother.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In just over 140 spare pages, Th\u00fay constructs an intricate mosaic of vignettes that flow through decades, continents, generations, and cultures. The \u201cReading Group Guide\u201d available at book\u2019s end explains that Ru<\/em> is \u201can autobiographical novel based on the author\u2019s real-life experience as a Vietnamese \u00e9migr\u00e9 and how she found her way \u2013\u00a0and her voice \u2013\u00a0after immigrating to Quebec.\u201d<\/p>\n

Written as a series of prose poems that range from a precise few lines to a fleeting few pages, the emerging narrative charts a young girl\u2019s journey from wealthy privilege in Vietnam; her rebirth as a war refugee in Canada; her return to her native country where the locals consider her \u201ctoo fat to be Vietnamese\u201d \u2013\u00a0not because of her stature, but because \u201cthe American dream had made me more substantial, heavier, weightier\u201d; and eventually her own overwhelming motherhood.\u00a0[… click here for more<\/a>]\n

Author profile<\/strong>: \u201cKim Thuy\u2019s Ru: An Apple for the Reader,\u201d Bloom<\/em>, September 16, 2013<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2009, 2012 (United States)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kim Th\u00fay\u2019s Ru: An Apple for the Reader Ah, well . . . better start with true confessions: my words appear on the back cover of the U.S. edition (at least the first printing) of Vietnamese Canadian author Kim Th\u00fay\u2019s debut novel, Ru. The blurb…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,5,4,9,6,107,6535,136,137,66,139,140],"tags":[182,6608,58,51,25,733,13,39,432,735,45],"class_list":["post-21820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-absolute-favorites","category-adult-readers","category-author-interview-profile","category-canadian-asian-pacific-american","category-fiction","category-memoir","category-repost","category-southeast-asian","category-southeast-asian-american","category-translation","category-vietnamese","category-vietnamese-american","tag-bloom","tag-bookdragon","tag-coming-of-age","tag-identity","tag-immigration","tag-kim-thuy","tag-love","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-refugees","tag-ru","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"\nAuthor Profile: Kim Th\u00fay [in Bloom] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author-profile-kim-thuy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Author Profile: Kim Th\u00fay [in Bloom] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kim Th\u00fay\u2019s Ru: An Apple for the Reader Ah, well . . . better start with true confessions: my words appear on the back cover of the U.S. edition (at least the first printing) of Vietnamese Canadian author Kim Th\u00fay\u2019s debut novel, Ru. 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