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Kim Thúy

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For the village, see Kim Thủy.
Kim Thúy

CM CQ
Thúy in November 2019
Thúy in November 2019
Born (1968-09-18) September 18, 1968 (age 56)
Saigon, South Vietnam
OccupationNovelist
NationalityVietnamese Canadian
Alma materUniversité de Montréal
GenreMigrant literature
Notable worksRu (2009)
Children2

Kim Thúy Ly Thanh, CM CQ (born 1968 in Saigon, South Vietnam)[1] is a Vietnamese-born Canadian writer. Kim Thúy was born in Vietnam in 1968. At the age of 10 she left Vietnam along with a wave of refugees commonly referred to in the media as “the boat people” and settled with her family in Quebec, Canada. A graduate in translation and law, she has worked as a seamstress, interpreter, lawyer, and restaurant owner. The author has received many awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2010, and was one of the top 4 finalists of the Alternative Nobel Prize in 2018. Her books have sold more than 850,000 copies around the world and have been translated into 31 languages and distributed across 43 countries and territories. Kim Thúy lives in Montreal where she devotes her time to writing.

Life and career

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At the age of ten, Thúy left Vietnam with her parents and two brothers, joining more than one million Vietnamese boat people fleeing the country's communist regime after the fall of Saigon in 1975.[2] Her family arrived at a refugee camp in Malaysia,[3] run by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, where they spent four months[4] before a Canadian delegation selected her parents for refugee status on account of their French-language proficiency.[5] In late 1979, Thúy and her family arrived in Granby, in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, and later settled in Montreal.[6]

Thúy earned a bachelor's degree from the Université de Montréal in linguistics and translation (1990), and later earned a law degree from the same school (1993). [7] In her early career, Thúy worked as a translator and interpreter and was later recruited by the Montreal-based law firm Stikeman Elliott to help with a Vietnam-based project.[8] In this capacity, she returned to Vietnam as one of a group of Canadian experts advising the country's Communist leadership on their tentative steps toward capitalism.[8] She met her husband while working at the same firm, and the couple had their first child while on assignment in Vietnam.[5] Their second child was born after the couple relocated to Bangkok, Thailand on account of her husband's work.[5]

After moving back to Montreal, Thúy opened a restaurant called Ru de Nam,[7] where she introduced modern Vietnamese cuisine to Montrealers.[5] She worked as a restaurateur for five years, after which she dedicated one full year to creative writing, and landed a publishing contract for her first book thanks to a former patron of Ru de Nam.[5]

In 2015, Thúy was one of the recipients of the Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Awards presented by Canadian Immigrant Magazine.[9]

In 2017, Thúy was the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate[10] from Concordia University.

She was nominated for the New Academy Prize in Literature in 2018.[11][12]

Work

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Thúy's debut novel Ru won the Governor General's Award for French-language fiction at the 2010 Governor General's Awards.[13] An English edition, translated by Sheila Fischman,[14] was published in 2012. The novel was a shortlisted nominee for the 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize[15] and the 2013 Amazon.ca First Novel Award. The novel won the 2015 edition of Canada Reads,[16] where it was championed by Cameron Bailey.

In 2016, Thúy published her third novel, Vi. An English translation, again by Fischman, was published in 2018.[17] The book was named as a longlisted nominee for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize.[18]

Ru, a film adaptation of Thúy's novel, was directed by Charles-Olivier Michaud and was released in 2023.[19]

Bibliography

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  • Ru (Libre Expression, 2009)
  • À toi (Libre Expression, 2011), co-written with Pascal Janovjak
  • Mãn (Libre Expression, 2013)
    • Translated by Sheila Fischman (Random House Canada, 2014)
  • Vi (Libre Expression, 2016)
    • Translated by Sheila Fischman (Random House Canada, 2018)
  • L’Autisme expliqué aux non-autistes (2017), by Brigitte Harrisson and Lise St-Charles with Kim Thúy
    • New Ways of Understanding Autism, trans. Juliet Sutcliffe (2019)
  • Le secret des Vietnamiennes (Trécarré, 2017)
    • Secrets from My Vietnamese Kitchen, trans. Sheila Fischman and Marie Asselin (2019)
  • Le poisson et l'oiseau (2019)
  • Em (Libre Expression, 2020)
    • Translated by Sheila Fischman (Penguin Random House Canada, 2021)

Awards and honours

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  • 2010 : RTL-Lire Grand Prize for Ru
  • 2010 : La Presse General Public Award, Montréal Book Fair, Essay category
  • 2010 : Governor-general's Award, novels category for Ru
  • 2011 : Premio Mondello Award for Multiculturalism
  • 2011 : Archambault Grand Literary Award for the novel Ru
  • 2018 : Women's Merit Award from the Women's Y Foundation of Montréal

References

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  1. ^ "From lawyer to novelist: an alumna's amazing journey" Archived 2014-10-12 at the Wayback Machine. Université de Montréal, February 9, 2010.
  2. ^ “Kim Thúy”, by Myriam Fontaine, Maude-Emmanuelle Lambert, at the Canadian Encyclopedia; published February 27, 2012; last edited January 18, 2018; retrieved May 28, 2018
  3. ^ “Kim Thúy on how ‘refugee literature’ differs from immigrant literature“, by Brian Bethune, at Maclean's; published April 11, 2018, retrieved May 28, 2018
  4. ^ “A Refugee's Multilayered Experience In 'Ru'”, interview by Scott Simon, at National Public Radio, on Weekend Edition Saturday; aired on November 24, 2012; retrieved May 28, 2018
  5. ^ a b c d e “Q&A with Kim Thúy”, interview by Terry Hong, at BLOOM; published September 18, 2013, retrieved May 28, 2018
  6. ^ “RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrants: Canada's Top 25 Immigrants: Kim Thúy”, by Lisa Evans, at Canadian Immigrant; retrieved May 28, 2018
  7. ^ a b “Asian Heritage in Canada: Kim Thúy” at Ryerson Library, Library and Archives; retrieved May 28, 2018
  8. ^ a b “Kim Thúy's river of life”, by John Barber, at The Globe and Mail; published February 5, 2012; updated April 30, 2018; retrieved May 28, 2018
  9. ^ "Canadas Top 25 Immigrants 2015". Canadian Immigrant. Retrieved 2021-06-18.
  10. ^ "Honorary degree citation - Kim Thúy". www.concordia.ca. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
  11. ^ "Canadian writer Kim Thuy among finalists for New Academy Prize in Literature". Calgary Herald. 29 August 2018. Retrieved 11 September 2018.
  12. ^ Löfgren, Emma (29 August 2018). "Four writers shortlisted for 'the new Nobel Literature Prize'". The Local. Retrieved 11 September 2018.
  13. ^ "Eight Quebec writers win Governor General's prizes"[permanent dead link]. The Gazette, November 17, 2010.
  14. ^ "Kim Thuy's novel Ru draws on refugee past". CBC News, March 9, 2012.
  15. ^ "Scotiabank Giller Prize short list announced". Toronto Star, October 1, 2012.
  16. ^ "'Ru' by Montreal's Kim Thuy wins CBC's 'Canada Reads' competition". Brandon Sun, March 19, 2015.
  17. ^ "6 new Canadian books to watch for in April". CBC Books, April 4, 2018.
  18. ^ "Esi Edugyan, Patrick deWitt, Tanya Tagaq among 12 authors longlisted for 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize". CBC Books, September 17, 2018.
  19. ^ Maxime Demers, "Une bande-annonce prometteuse pour «Ru», le film adapté du roman à succès de Kim Thúy". Le Journal de Montréal, July 12, 2023.
  20. ^ General, Office of the Secretary to the Governor (2023-12-22). "Order of Canada appointees – December 2023". The Governor General of Canada. Retrieved 2024-08-23.
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