Author(s): Nguyen Phan Que Mai

Fiction - General

'An epic account of Viet Nam's painful 20th-century history, both vast in scope and intimate in its telling... Moving and riveting.' Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer

An intimate, stirring portrait of a country at war and a family's battle to survive

Set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War, The Mountains Sing is the enveloping, multi-generational tale of the Trần family, perfect for fans of Min Jin Lee's Pachinko or Vaddey Ratner's In the Shadow of the Banyan.

Hà Nội, 1972. Hương and her grandmother, Trần Diệu Lan, cling to one another in their improvised shelter as American bombs fall around them. Her father and mother have already left to fight in a war that is tearing not just her country but her family apart. For Trần Diệu Lan, forced to flee the family farm with her six children decades earlier as the Communist government rose to power in the North, this experience is horribly familiar. Seen through the eyes of these two unforgettable women, The Mountains Sing captures their defiance and determination, hope and unexpected joy.

Celebrated Vietnamese poet Nguyễn's richly lyrical debut weaves between the lives of grandmother and granddaughter to paint a unique picture of the turbulent twentieth-century in Việt Nam. This is the story of a country pushed to breaking point, and a family who refuse to give in.