Em
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15
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Average rating4
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE Kim Thúy's Em is a virtuosic novel of profound power and sensitivity, and an enduring affirmation of the greatest act of resistance: love. In the midst of war, an ordinary miracle: an abandoned baby tenderly cared for by a young boy living on the streets of Saigon. The boy is Louis, the child of a long-gone American soldier. Louis calls the baby em Hồng, em meaning "little sister," or "beloved." Even though her cradle is nothing more than a cardboard box, em Hồng's life holds every possibility. Through the linked destinies of a family of characters, the novel takes its inspiration from historical events, including Operation Babylift, which evacuated thousands of biracial orphans from Saigon in April 1975, and the remarkable growth of the nail salon industry, dominated by Vietnamese expatriates all over the world. From the rubber plantations of Indochina to the massacre at My Lai, Kim Thúy sifts through the layers of pain and trauma in stories we thought we knew, revealing transcendent moments of grace and the invincibility of the human spirit.
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It felt like a sketchbook. Watercolor and fine pencil, each two-to-three-page chapter a mix of wispy impressions and sharp focus. Stories and characters radiating around 1970s Vietnam, interlacing together like raindrop ripples in a pond; I hesitate to use weave or tapestry because the overall work is too ethereal, it adds up to form a big picture but one that can only be viewed from up close or far away. There is no middle viewpoint.
Thúy's language (in Fischman's translation, at least) is lean. She conveys much emotion and imagery in few words. Much of it is painful, of course, but there's a lot of resilience and love too. Although this is a short book pagewise, it is worth reading leisurely.
