Illustration by Jiny Ung<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nRu<\/em>\u2019s strength lies in the way Kim Thuy tells the now familiar Vietnamese story of war, migration, and resettlement. The core narrative recounts the experiences of Nguyen An Tinh \u2013 a thinly veiled stand-in for the author \u2013 and her journey from war-torn Vietnam to Canada. Along the way, the narrator muses on issues as diverse as autism, prostitution, Amerasians, love, and diasporic returns. Instead of feeling scattered and digressive, the vignettes gel together to give the novel a structureless structure<\/em> \u2013 a result of the author\u2019s attempt to mimic the disjointed everyday practice of storytelling, the elliptical nature of memory and remembrance.<\/p>\nKim Thuy\u2019s writing is graceful, and her story compelling, but what makes Ru<\/em> so interesting to me is the fact that its publication marks a historical moment in Canada. Ru<\/em> is the first Vietnamese Canadian novel, or rather, the first novel written by a person of Vietnamese descent in Canada, or rather, the first book by a Vietnamese Canadian to be marketed as a novel. As I mentioned above, the fictionalized narrator shares the details of Kim Thuy\u2019s life, and the book itself could easily be considered a memoir were it not for the simple change of name. Yet, with the decision to replace Kim Thuy\u2019s \u201cI\u201d with a fictional \u201cI,\u201d Ru<\/em> earns the distinction of being Vietnamese Canada\u2019s first novelistic work of fiction.<\/p>\nThe novel joins a small cluster of texts that, taken together, constitute what we might call \u201cVietnamese Canadian literature\u201d: memoirs by Vietnamese Canadians (Nguyen Ngoc Ngan\u2019s The Will of Heaven: A Story of One Vietnamese and the End of His World<\/em>, co-authored with E.E Richey; Minh Thanh Nguyen\u2019s Leaving Vietnam<\/em>; Kim Phuc\u2019s The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, The Photograph, and the Vietnam War<\/em>, co-authored with Denise Chong; and Thuong Vuong-Riddick\u2019s The Evergreen Country: A Memoir of Vietnam<\/em>), poetry collections by Vietnamese Canadians (Thuong Vuong-Riddick\u2019s Two Shores \/ Deux Rives<\/em>), works by Sino-Vietnamese Canadians (Vincent Lam’s Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures<\/em> and The Headmaster’s Wager<\/em>) and novels written by non-Vietnamese Canadians with prominent Vietnamese characters (John Bergen\u2019s The Time in Between<\/em> and Dionne Brand\u2019s What We All Long For<\/em>). While many of these works have been successful in their own right, Ru<\/em>\u2019s arrival on the scene, its massive critical and commercial success, has brought public attention to Vietnamese Canadian experiences and to the literary<\/em> rendering of these experiences, to the possibility of Vietnamese Canadians expressing themselves through the beautiful art of fiction.<\/p>\nVinh Nguyen is a PhD Candidate in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. He lives in Toronto, Canada.<\/em><\/p>\ndiaCRITICS is thrilled to have Jiny Ung’s original work grace this post.\u00a0Jiny Ung specializes in mold-making and animation. She has done production and design work for short films in Southeast Asia. Current animation projects focus on themes of guilt, loss, and queer heroes in the form of fruit-robot-animal hybrids. \n<\/em><\/p>\n\u2013<\/p>\n
Do you enjoy reading diaCRITICS? Then please\u00a0consider subscribing<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\nPlease take the time to rate this post (above) and share it (below). Ratings for top posts are listed on the sidebar. Sharing (on email, Facebook, etc.) helps spread the word about diaCRITICS. And join the conversation and leave a comment! Excited to read the first Vietnamese Canadian novel? How do you think such a Vietnamese Canadian novel be different from or similar to the Vietnamese American novel? \n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guest author Vinh Nguyen follows up on Kim Thuy’s novel Ru, that had first appeared on diaCRITICS with a review of the original French publication by Isabelle Thuy Pelaud.\u00a0 First published in 2009, Ru is Kim Thuy’s reflection on immigration and a Vietnamese childhood in Canada. At that time, Ru was only available in French, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":13589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[]},"categories":[29,62,98],"tags":[1577,427,600,1035,707,1034,1033],"yoast_head":"\n
Kim Thuy | Ru | The First Vietnamese Canadian Novel<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n