Bøker av Thuan

"Thu?n's prose, at once expansive and claustrophobic, haunts without weighing the reader down. Across Hanoi, Saigon, Paris, Pyongyang, and Seoul, our narrator attempts to force a sense of clarity into her past, but colonialism blurs history and scripts the very fabric of existence, trapping our narrator in a seemingly endless search. Thrilling, tragic, and at times hilarious, Elevator in Sài Gòn is a postcolonial ghost story, a political satire, and a romance that will linger in the psyche long after the final descent of the elevator." -Sheung-King, author of You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked. and Batshit SevenA Vietnamese woman living in Paris travels back to Sài Gòn for her estranged mother's funeral. Her brother had recently built a new house and staged a grotesquely lavish ceremony for their mother to inaugurate what was rumoured to be the first elevator in a private home in the country. But shortly after the ceremony, in the middle of the night, their mother dies after mysteriously falling down the elevator shaft. Following the funeral, the daughter becomes increasingly fascinated with her family's history, and begins to investigate and track an enigmatic figure, Paul Polotski, who emerges from her mother's notebook. Like an amateur sleuth, she trails Polotski through the streets of Paris, sneaking behind him as he goes about his usual routines; meanwhile, she researches her mother's past-zigzagging across France and Asia-trying to find clues to the spiralling, deepening questions her mother left behind unanswered-and perhaps unanswerable.

A young Vietnamese woman living in Paris travels back to Saigon for her estranged mother's funeral. Her brother had recently built a new house in Saigon, including what was rumored to be the first elevator in a private home in the country, but days after moving in, their mother mysteriously fell down the elevator shaft, dying in an instant.After the funeral, the daughter becomes increasingly fascinated with her family's history and learns of an enigmatic figure, Paul Polotsky, from her mother's notebook. Like an amateur sleuth, she trails Polotsky through the streets of Paris. Meanwhile, she tries to find clues about her mother's past, which zigzags through Hà N?i, Sài Gòn, Paris, Pyongyang, and Seoul. Combining elements of the detective thriller, a historical romance, and the immigrant experience, Elevator in Sài Gòn is a scathing satire of life in a communist state and a heartbreaking postcolonial ghost story.

An unfinished love story, humorous and haunting, of diasporic lives in Vietnam and France. Interspersed with extracts from I'm Yellow, the narrator's book-length monologue is an attempt, at once desperate, ironic, and self-deprecating, to come to terms with the passions that haunts her.