Celebrated Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai shares her first novel in English, an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Trần family, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War. Registration required. Click here to register.

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai will speak with Karl Marlantes, author of Deep River, Matterhorn, and What It’s Like to Go to War.

This event is supported by The Seattle Public Library Foundation, author series sponsors the Gary and Connie Kunis Foundation, and Seattle City of Literature. Thanks to media sponsor The Seattle Times. The event is presented in partnership with Elliott Bay Book Company. This program will recorded, captioned and posted on The Seattle Public Library’s YouTube page after the event.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Trần Diệu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Nội, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the Hồ Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that tore not just her beloved country, but her family apart.

Vivid, gripping, and steeped in the language and traditions of Việt Nam, The Mountains Sing brings to life the human costs of this conflict from the point of view of the Vietnamese people themselves, while showing us the true power of kindness and hope.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Born into the Viet Nam War in 1973, Nguyen Phan Que Mai grew up witnessing the war’s devastation and its aftermath. She worked as a street seller and rice farmer before winning a scholarship to attend university in Australia. She is the author of eight books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction published in Vietnamese, and her writing has been translated and published in more than 10 countries, most recently in Norton’s Inheriting the War anthology. She has been honored with many awards, including the Poetry of the Year 2010 Award from the Ha Noi Writers Association, as well as many grants and fellowships. Married to a European diplomat, Que Mai is currently living in Jakarta with her two teenage children. For more information about Nguyen Phan Que Mai, visit her website.

Karl Marlantes graduated from Yale University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He is the bestselling author of Matterhorn, which won the 2011 Washington State Book Award for Fiction as well as The Colby Award. He is also the author of What It Is Like to Go to War and his newest novel, Deep River. He lives in rural Washington.

PRAISE:

“Expansive in scope and feeling, The Mountains Sing is a feat of hope, an unflinchingly felt inquiry into the past, with the courageous storytelling of the present.” —Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

“The Mountains Sing is an epic account of Việt Nam’s painful 20th century history, both vast in scope and intimate in its telling. Through the travails of one family, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai brings us close to the horrors of famine, war, and class struggle. But in this moving and riveting novel, she also shows us a postwar Việt Nam, a country of hope and renewal, home to a people who have never given up.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Sympathizer

“Good literature frees us from being trapped in our own skins by allowing us to identify with characters and see the world through their eyes. Reading this novel, I was moved by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s beautiful, even poetic, depictions of enduring courage. I came away with a deeper understanding of the war in which I fought.” —Karl Marlantes, bestselling author of Matterhorn, What It’s Like to Go to War,and Deep River

View in Catalog: The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

ADA Accommodations: We can provide accommodations for people with disabilities at Library events. Please contact leap@spl.org at least seven days before the event to request accommodations. Captions are available for all recorded Library programs.

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