This novel should win the Nobel Prize because in its essence, the story promotes World Peace by telling the atrocities of war inflicted on one country and its effects on people. I also think that in every page, the author has declared her sincere love for all humanity.

This book was difficult to read for me. It was painful and heart wrenching, and I felt for all its characters. I was affected and disturbed by it in many ways that, at the end, I was surprised that a book could move me so much. It seems to be impossible to read a book like this and not wish for all wars to end, once and for all. Anyone who reads this story has to come to the conclusion that be it within a country, against a country, or between countries, any war is useless and harmful and should be banned worldwide.

The story is about several generations of a farming family, who is in the beginning, fairly well-to-do but later, with each war and political idealism, its members end up suffering hunger, pain, cruelty, and violence. Despite with what happened to them, these people are inspirational for meeting all those challenges with grace, love, and forgiveness.

Although the story is told mostly from the viewpoints of a grandchild Huong and her grandmother Diu Lan, every character in it is significant, even the villains. The story is told in a back-and-forth-style time frame of nearly a century, which is a great choice for this kind of a tragedy since the later calmer life told by Huong takes the weight of the calamities of the earlier times.

In the story, as far as relationships go, children, parents, and grandparents occupy the central stage throughout, and each character has very difficult choices to make, but then, all characters are affected tremendously by the political scene, the complex history, and horrific wars.

The book is crafted masterfully with expert storytelling and lyrical language with several local and cultural characteristics added to it. Historically it is correct, too, because as an old person, I can recall the news of long ago, of the places, incidents, and events, very well. Then, although I don’t know Vietnamese, I could also understand and relate to the phrases and sayings inside the story since their translations were included deftly without cutting into the flow of the story.

In writing this, I have stayed away from any kind of a summary because this book deserves to be read in its totality and appreciated for the effects it leaves on its readers.

The grandmother's resilience and the author's insight into characters and situations.

read other books by this author, although this is the only book she has written in English

want World Peace even more strongly than before.

According to Amazon: is Nguyen Phan Que Mai, "Born into the VietNam War in 1973. She 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 nonfiction in Vietnamese, and her writing has been translated and published in more than ten countries, most recently in Norton’s Inheriting the War anthology. She has been honored with the Hà Noi Writers Association’s Poetry of the Year 2010 Award, the Capital’s Literature & Arts Award, and First Prize - the Poetry Competition About 1,000 Years Hà Noi, among others. Que Mai has an MA in Creative Writing and is currently a PhD candidate at Lancaster University. She divides her time between Indonesia and VietNam. For more information, visit her at www.nguyenphanquemai.com."

It is an important book to read, the way I see it. It left an everlasting effect on me.
I am sure it is one of the few best books I have read in all my lifetime. But the story is tragic and painful to read, despite the goodness and resilience of its characters.

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Created Jun 28, 2020 at 5:07pm • Submit your own review...