Canadian
Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
novelist Kim Thúy, first published in French in 2009 by
Montreal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
The novel tells the tale of a woman, An Tinh Nguyen, born in
Saigon
Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) ('','' TP.HCM; ), commonly known as Saigon (; ), is the most populous city in Vietnam with a population of around 14 million in 2025.
The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the largest is Saigo ...
in 1968 during the
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. The Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) launched a surprise attack on 30 January 1968 against the forces of ...
who immigrates to Canada with her family as a child.
The book switches between her childhood in Vietnam where she was born into a large and wealthy family, her time as a boat person when she left her country for a refugee camp in
Malaysia
Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...
, and her life as an early immigrant in
Granby, Quebec
Granby () is a town in the southwestern region of Quebec east of Montreal. According to the latest statistics from the 2021 Canadian census, 2021 Canadian Census, Granby has a population of 69,025. It is the administrative center of La Haute-Yam ...
. The story is told by a first-person narrative.
Title
The word ru has significance in both French and Vietnamese. In French, the word means stream or flow of money, tears or blood. In Vietnamese, the word means cradle or lullaby.
About
Kim Thúy wrote the book in honor of the people who welcomed her and her family into their life when they first arrived. War, migration, and resettlement are themes that reoccur throughout the novel.
Style
Ru is read like an autobiography but is written as the fictional tale of migrant experiences. The style of the book has been described as being an auto-fiction.
The book tells the story of the first wave of Boat People who fled Vietnam between 1977 and 1979 and the trauma they lived through, taking the reader on their journey. It is estimated that more than 200,000 boat people fled, many of which drowned.
The novel is written in 144 unnumbered vignettes, that share the memories of the protagonist in three completely different environments: Her childhood home in Vietnam, a refugee camp in Malaysia, and the town of Granby in Quebec, Canada. The style of writing resembles memories shared by the narrator, which are woven together to create a narrative.
The characters included in the novel are the narrator's family members, both immediate and extended, as well as friends and individuals whom she encountered along her journey. Consistent with practice in Vietnamese families, the family members of the narrator are not given names, but instead referred to by birth order. By having nameless characters, the author depersonalizes them and leaves room for interpretation.
Awards and nominations
The original French edition of the novel was selected for the 2014 edition of ''
Le Combat des livres
''Le Combat des livres'' is an annual "battle of the books" competition organized and broadcast by Ici Radio-Canada Première in Canada. A French edition of the ''Canada Reads'' competition, the program was launched in 2004. It aired annually from ...
'', where it was defended by author and physician Jean-François Chicoine. Its English translation was selected for the 2015 edition of ''
Canada Reads
''Canada Reads'' is an annual "battle of the books" competition organized and broadcast by Canada's public broadcaster, the CBC. The program has aired in two distinct editions, the English-language ''Canada Reads'' on CBC Radio One, and the Fre ...
'' by film critic and
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...
programmer
Cameron Bailey
Cameron Bailey is a Canadian film critic and festival programmer, who is the CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Biography
Born in London, England to parents from Barbados,Sheila Fischman, was published in 2012 by
Random House Canada
Random House of Canada was the Canadian distributor for Random House, Inc. from 1944 until 2013. On July 1, 2013, it amalgamated with Penguin Canada to become Penguin Random House Canada.
Company history
Random House of Canada was established i ...
and was a shortlisted nominee for the 2012
Scotiabank Giller Prize
The Giller Prize (known as the Scotiabank Giller Prize from 2005-2023) is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English (including translation) the previous year, after an annual juried c ...
, the 2012 Governor General's Award for French to English translation, and the 2013 Amazon.ca First Novel Award.
*WINNER 2015 - Canada Reads
*WINNER 2011 – Grand Prix littéraire Archambault
*WINNER 2011 – Mondello Prize for Multiculturalism
*WINNER 2010 – Prix du Grand Public Salon du livre––Essai/Livre pratique
*WINNER 2010 – Governor General's Award for Fiction (French-language)
*WINNER 2010 – Grand Prix RTL-Lire at the Salon du livre de Paris
Reception
Kim Thúy lives and works in Canada. However, the audience, discourse, and geographical locations in Ru are taken beyond the borders of Canada. The book has been published in Canada, both in English and French, as well as eighteen other countries.
In an interview, Thúy describes the different perspective readers have depended on where they are from. She gives the example of people in Romania focusing on the communist regime described in the book, while people in France focused on the structure and the language used in the book.
The book has been seen as controversial, especially in Vietnam where the author describes the communist history as still being recent and a sensitive topic. Thúy goes on to discuss that the history of the Boat People has not yet become part of Vietnam history. The novel Ru does not portray the communists in a completely negative perspective, which Thúy claims has caused controversy as a portion of the Vietnamese population blame them for the hardships their families endured.