The Mountains Sing
The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
Reviewed by Mimi
📙📙📙📙📙
This is a heartbreaking novel centred around two generations of the Tran family through the conflict in Vietnam. We follow the experience of grandmother and granddaughter as they navigate poverty, illness, missing family, politics, and war in Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai's debut English novel. The Mountains Sing really captures the imagination and tugs at your heart. The bond between them is strong and powers this experience, they rely upon one another in every sense because the war has stolen everything from them.
Tran Dieu Lan, the grandmother has a heart-aching experience running away from those who would kill her for being of means. In the course of her escape, she has to leave her children with different strangers to keep them safe. In the parallel of the future, her granddaughter grows up without her parents for large parts of her life as they play their part in the war and they also have to try and live under the radar. When her mother eventually returns, it is like she isn't really there. She has been through such trauma that she can barely stand to be with her mother and daughter.
This novel brilliantly demonstrates how children are robbed of their innocence in times of war and how families are torn apart when there is a conflict. It is an insight into another part of history that only existed in textbooks and statistics for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's beautifully written in a style that engages and inspires all your senses- the sounds, the smells and the landscape are so vivid and there are so many layers to it that I found myself utterly engrossed throughout.
One of my favourites of this year so far!
