Ru

About this book

A runaway bestseller in Quebec with foreign rights sold to 15 countries around the world Kim Thys Governor Generals Literary Award-winning Ru is a lullaby for Vietnam and a love letter to a new homeland. Ru. In Vietnamese it means lullaby; in French it is a small stream but also signifies a flow - of tears blood money. Kim Thys Ru is literature at its most crystalline: the flow of a life on the tides of unrest and on to more peaceful waters. In vignettes of exquisite clarity sharp observation and sly wit we are carried along on an unforgettable journey from a palatial residence in Saigon to a crowded and muddy Malaysian refugee camp and onward to a new life in Quebec. There the young girl feels the embrace of a new community and revels in the chance to be part of the American Dream. As an adult the waters become rough again: now a mother of two sons she must learn to shape her love around the younger boys autism. Moving seamlessly from past to present from history to memory and back again Ru is a book that celebrates life in all its wonder: its moments of beauty and sensuality brutality and sorrow comfort and comedy.