Conversation with Kim Thúy

On April, the Canadian Cultural Centre is highlighting the power and creativity of Canadian women artists. 

On April 15th at 8 pm, the Canadian Cultural Centre invites you to join us on Facebook and YouTube for an exceptional conversation with the Vietnamese-born Quebec author Kim Thúy on the occasion of the release in France of her new novel, Em, published by Liana Levi. 

This online conversation is moderated by journalist Sophie Joubert (L’Humanité, culture department).  

In Vietnam, the word em is used to express tenderness, a delicate attention for the other, younger or older. Em is the thread that links the workers on the rubber plantations in Indochina to the women in the first nail salons in North America run by former boat people. As never before, Kim Thúy makes us see the links of love and hate between the shattered lives of the Vietnam War or “American War”. Through the prism of a reality that has long been taboo: mixed-race children, born to French settlers and then to American soldiers. A terrible destiny, like all the true stories in this path through the history of herbirth country, Vietnam.

Kim Thúy was born in 1968 in Saigon at the height of the Vietnam War. At the age of ten, she was one of the hundreds of thousands of boat people fleeing the communist regime. She settled in Montreal and worked in various jobs – seamstress, interpreter, lawyer and restaurant owner – before devoting herself to writing. In 2010, her first book, Ru emerged as a best-seller in France and Quebec. Translated in more than twenty countries, it won the Governor General’s Award and the Grand Prix RTL-Lire. In 2018, she is a finalist for the Alternative Nobel Prize. With Mãn (2013), Vi (2016) and Em (2021), Kim Thúy continues to explore her dual identity.

In partnership with Liana Levi Publishing.