Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin (pub: March 17, 2020)

First Edition. Signed on bookplate.

Fine in dust jacket.

“An epic account of Việt Nam’s painful 20th century history, both vast in scope and intimate in its telling . . . Moving and riveting.” —VIET THANH NGUYEN, author of The Sympathizer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

With the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko or Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and the lyrical beauty of Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan, The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Trần family, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War.

Trần Diệu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Nội, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the Hồ Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that tore not just her beloved country, but her family apart.

Vivid, gripping, and steeped in the language and traditions of Việt Nam, The Mountains Sing brings to life the human costs of this conflict from the point of view of the Vietnamese people themselves, while showing us the true power of kindness and hope. The Mountains Sing is celebrated Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s first novel in English.

Dr Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is the author of eleven books. Her novel THE MOUNTAINS SING, is an International Bestseller, a New York Times Editors' Choice Selection, Winner of the 2020 BookBrowse Best Debut Award, Winner of the Blogger's Book Prize 2021, and Winner of the 2020 Lannan Literary Award Fellowship for "a work of exceptional quality" and for "contribution to peace and reconciliation". The novel has been named a best book of 2020 by more than 10 media establishments including NPR and the Washington Independent Review of Books. Her writing has appeared on The New York Times, BBC Vietnamese, Lit Hub, Poets & Writers Magazine, among others.

***REVEIWS***

A Most-Anticipated Book of the Year: The New York Times * The Washington Post * PopSugar * The Millions * Library Journal * Lit Hub * The Week * She Reads

"A luminous, complex family narrative . . . The Mountains Sing affirms the individual's right to think, read, and act according to a code of intuitive civility, borne out of Vietnam's fertile and compassionate cultural heritage." -- NPR

"Expansive in scope and feeling, The Mountains Sing is a feat of hope, an unflinchingly felt inquiry into the past, with the courageous storytelling of the present." -- Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

"This multigenerational tale chronicles the Tran family as a Vietnamese woman visits Hanoi and reflects on the life lessons shared by her late grandmother." -- USA Today, "Five Books Not to Miss"

"Good literature frees us from being trapped in our own skins by allowing us to identify with characters and see the world through their eyes. Reading this novel, I was moved by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai's beautiful, even poetic, depictions of enduring courage. I came away with a deeper understanding of the war in which I fought." -- Karl Marlantes, bestselling author of Matterhorn, What It's Like to Go to War, and Deep River