Mi historia estaba cortada, reinventada. Ningún objeto, ni en mi casa ni en la de mi madre, llevaba la huella de las generaciones, a diferencia del altar de los ancestros, que era testigo de todos los matrimonios, de los aniversarios, de las muertes, de la ceremonia del Año Nuevo desde hacía al menos cien años. ¿Se habría convertido aquel mueble en punto de referencia de otra familia desde que nos lo quitaron?

Note: I had the opportunity of reading a Spanish translation of this book (which is originally written in French), so I think not so much is lost in translation… however, for what I read online, the English translation is awesome too.

Vi is a short novel that one can easily read in an afternoon, and it is remarkable how much of a book this brief story contains. Told in short chapters that narrate a single event that eventually builds towards the main character’s life story, the book follows Vi (which means “precious tiny one”), from her childhood in Vietnam, through the war and her migration to Canada, finally returning to her homeland as a grown-up woman.

Thúy writes beautifully, with such a simple style that yet portrays so much. Somehow, in such few pages, she captures the hardship of being a woman between two cultures, trying to live up to a name and an ideal. Her storytelling transported me to pre-war Vietnam, where her grandparents met (one of my favorite vignettes), to the horrors of the refugee camps, to a Vietnamese community in Quebec and a communist Vietnam. Some events on the book are heartbreaking, yet they did not feel overwhelming…you get the sense that Thúy carefully selected all the elements, from each word to the pace of the novel, so that it would be delicate and organic. I loved that, like Vi’s name, the whole book was precious and tiny, but like the character, it was way more: powerful and whole. I definitely recommend it.

About Kim Thúy

Like Vi, Kim Thúy belongs to the generation of “boat people” that fled the country’s communist regime. She arrived at Quebec as a child with her parents and brothers. She has two degrees from the University of Montreal, one in Language and Translation and one in Law. Before becoming a writer she worked as a restauranteur for five years. She was nominated for the New Academy Prize in Literature in 2018

Other books written by Vietnamese women:

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Vietnamese initiatives and projects that support and empower girls and women

Women’s Empowerment and Voice (WEAV) 

Women’s Empowerment and Voice (WEAV) is a nonprofit organization that provides education, mentoring, and leadership development programs for girls and women in economically challenged communities in Vietnam. WEAV awards scholarships from grade 1 to college (currently supports over 100 young women attending college) so that girls from poor Vietnamese families receive as many years of education as possible.