Ru by Thuy Kim
Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction
Winner of 2015 Canada Reads Prize
Winner of Grand Prix litt raire Archambault
Finalist for the 2012 Soctiabank Giller Prize
Finalist for the 2018 New Academy Prize in Literature
Longlisted for the 2014 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize.
At ten years old, Kim Th y fled Vietnam on a boat with her family, leaving behind a grand house and the many less tangible riches of their home country: the ponds of lotus blossoms, the songs of soup-vendors. The family arrived in Quebec, where they found clothes at the flea market, and mattresses with actual fleas. Kim learned French and English, and as she grew older, seized what opportunities an immigrant could; she put herself through school picking vegetables and sewing clothes, worked as a lawyer and interpreter, and later as a restaurateur. She was married and a mother when the urge to write struck her, and she found herself scribbling words at every opportunity - pulling out her notebook at stoplights and missing the change to green. The story emerging was one of a Vietnamese migr on a boat to an unknown future: her own story fictionalized and crafted into a stunning novel.
The novel's title,
Ru, has meaning in both Kim's native and adoptive languages: in Vietnamese,
ru is a lullaby; in French, a stream. And it provides the perfect name for this slim yet potent novel. With prose that soothes and sings,
Ru weaves through time, flows and transports: a river of sensuous memories gathering power. It's a classic immigrant story told in a breathtaking new way.
