The Mountains Sing

Four generations of the Trần family across the full arc of Vietnamese 20th century history — the French colonial period, land reform under Ho Chi Minh, the American war, the fall of Saigon, the aftermath. Grandmother Diệu Lan has survived everything and is now trying to hold her granddaughter Hương together in the ruins of Hanoi. Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai writes in English — her third language — with a precision and tenderness that makes every loss specific and every act of survival count. The dispatch that completes the Vietnam shelf alongside The Sympathizer and The Sorrow of War: Nguyen gives you the diaspora's reckoning, Bảo Ninh gives you the soldier's grief, and this book gives you the women and the land across a century of war.