The Mountains Sing

"Informed by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s family history, The Mountains Sing is a fictionalized remembrance of a turbulent 20th-century Việt Nam. Told alternately through the eyes of Diệu Lan and her granddaughter Hương, we follow four generations of the Trần family as they experience the French colonial period, the Great Hunger of 1945, Land Reform and the Vietnam War (or the American War, as it’s known in Việt Nam). Quế Mai’s first novel in English is lyrical and at once heart-wrenching and hopeful. Quế Mai has described the book as her “desperate call for peace and for humans to love other human beings more.” After a year like 2020, I think that call will resonate with many."