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Ru, December 2012
Paperback / e-Book
Bloomsbury
December 2012
On Sale: November 27, 2012
160 pages ISBN: 1608198987 EAN: 9781608198986 Kindle: B009K509PM Paperback / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Memoir
At ten years old, Kim Thúy fled Vietnam on a boat with her
family, leaving behind a grand house and the many less
tangible riches of their home country: the ponds of lotus
blossoms, the songs of soup-vendors. The family arrived in
Quebec, where they found clothes at the flea market, and
mattresses with actual fleas. Kim learned French and
English, and as she grew older, seized what opportunities an
immigrant could; she put herself through school picking
vegetables and sewing clothes, worked as a lawyer and
interpreter, and later as a restaurateur. She was married
and a mother when the urge to write struck her, and she
found herself scribbling words at every opportunity -
pulling out her notebook at stoplights and missing the
change to green. The story emerging was one of a Vietnamese
émigré on a boat to an unknown future: her own story
fictionalized and crafted into a stunning novel. The novel's
title, Ru, has meaning in both Kim's native and adoptive
languages: in Vietnamese, ru is a lullaby; in French, a
stream. And it provides the perfect name for this slim yet
potent novel. With prose that soothes and sings, Ru weaves
through time, flows and transports: a river of sensuous
memories gathering power. It's a classic immigrant story
told in a breathtaking new way.
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