Ru by Kim Thúy
This was the winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction and is drawn from the author's own experiences in Vietnam as a child, fleeing as one of the boat people, making a new life in Montreal, and returning to Vietnam as an adult. It is written in very short segments, some only a couple of sentences, some a few pages. It jumps back and forth in time between various points in childhood and adulthood. It is strong with memories, evoking a situation, a feeling, an encounter.
It is a very different book, hard to define, and leaving one with a feeling of being somewhere else. The reader is drawn into the thoughts and feelings of the narrator through the wonderful language used to bring these scenes to life. This is a book describing love, in all its many forms. And it is a book showing the lengths people will go to for survival, for a chance to live.
I read this book a year ago and thought it was a wonderful read as well, You are right that it was a different book and hard to define, but a lot to take from when you're reading it.
ReplyDelete