Ru

Ru is the story of Nguyễn An Tịnh’s journey from war torn Viet Nam to Québec in the 1970s. Based on the recollections of the author, Kim Thúy, it is told in sparse, poetic chapters. The novel shifts between her privileged upbringing and the subsequent political persecution of the family in Saigon, to her voyage as a boat person landing in a refugee camp and the early days of her settlement in Quebec.

A recent study showed that reading literary fiction enhances our ability to understand other people. When a reader is asked fill in the gaps of a story, this flexes the same psychological ‘muscles’ that are needed to navigate real relationships. By extension, I think that they are also the same empathetic skills that a person needs to understand political situations that may otherwise feel far removed.

I don’t, however, need my reaction to Ru confirmed by science: The novel made me laugh and cry–and sometimes both at once. It’s beautiful, funny, moving and sad. Long after reading it, I can still feel it lingering inside me.

That is the beauty of Ru. It invites us into an experience through the senses. We can hear, smell, taste and feel how it might have been to be a boat person leaving Viet Nam. Through the main character, we can also cast a new eye on Canada. She shows the value of human rights and what they can mean to us on the most personal level.

— Claire Cameron

Claire Cameron’s second novel, The Bear, was published earlier this year by Reagan Arthur Books/Little Brown in the US, Random House in Canada and Harvill Secker in the UK.

The Bear was recently long-listed for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) and is a bestseller in Canada. It has been described as “a tender, terrifying, poignant ride” by O Magazine, as well as an “expertly crafted novel” by People Magazine and “stylistically impressive and deeply moving” by Glamour Magazine.

Her first novel, The Line Painter, was published in 2007 by HarperCollins Canada. It won the Northern Lit Award from the Ontario Library Service and was nominated for an Arthur Ellis Crime Writing Award for best first novel.

Claire’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Globe & Mail, The Millions, Los Angeles Review of Books and The Rumpus. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two children.

Kim Thúy left Vietnam as a boat person when she was ten years old. She has worked as a seamstress, an interpreter, a lawyer, a restaurant chef-owner, and a guest chef on various radio and television channels.

Kim lives in Montréal. Ru was her first novel, published in French by Libre Expression in October 2009. Translation rights have been sold in 20 countries so far. It won the Governor-General’s Literary Award in the French language category in 2010. As well, it won the prestigious Grand Prix RTL/Lire 2010 in France, the multicultural Prix Mondello in Italy in 2011, the Grand Prix Archambault in 2010 and the Grand Prix du Salon du Livre de Montréal in 2010.

Her latest novel Mãn was published in English in August this year by Random House Canada.

Sheila Fischman is the award-winning translator of some 150 contemporary novels from Québec. In 2008, she was awarded the Molson Prize in the Arts. She is a Member of the Order of Canada and a chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec. She lives in Montréal.