Ru, her first book, was published in 2009 by Libre Expression and was an instant success. A bestseller in Quebec and France and translated into twenty-eight languages, Ru has also won numerous literary awards, including the prestigious 2010 Governor General’s Award, the 2010 RTL-Lire Grand Prize from the Salon du livre de Paris, the Italian Premio Mondello per la Multiculturalità 2011 and the Grand Prix littéraire Archambault 2011. Ru was also a finalist for the Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie in 2010 and for the prestigious 2012 Giller Prize for best Canadian book. The English edition won the Canada Reads Battle of the Books and was declared “the” book to read in Canada in 2015.

Ru is made up of very short stories that are linked, as if in a ritornello: the first sentence of the chapter usually repeats the idea that ended the previous chapter, thus making it possible to bridge all the events that the narrator has experienced: her birth in Vietnam during the war, the flight with the boat people, her reception in a small town in Quebec, her studies, her family ties, her autistic child, etc. The writer’s life is filled with charming, singular people, difficult or bizarre situations experienced with equal happiness, and she knows how to play wonderfully with the reader’s feelings.

AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS

• Winner 2015 – Canada Reads
• Winner 2014 – Literary Prize of the Ambassadors of the Francophonie countries (Denmark)
• Winner 2011 – Mondello Prize for Multiculturalism (Italy)
• Winner 2011 – Grand Prix littéraire Archambault – public prize
• Winner 2010 – Prix du Grand Public Salon du livre de Montréal
• 2010 Winner – Governor General’s Literary Award 2010
• Winner 2010 – Grand Prix RTL-Lire du Salon du livre de Paris (France)
• Finalist 2018 – The New Academy Literary Prize 2018 (The Alternative Nobel)
• Finalist 2012 – Scotiabank Giller Prize (Canada)
• Finalist 2012 – Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation
• Finalist 2010 – Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie (international)
• Finalist 2010 – Prix Première (Belgium)
• Finalist 2010 – Ouest-France Étonnants Voyageurs Prize (France)
• Finalist 2010 – Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation Discovery Grant
• First selection 2012 – Man Asian Literary Prize
• First selection 2014 – International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
• 2012 Nominee – Amazon.ca First Novel Award
• Best-seller in Quebec (Renaud-Bray, Archambault and Le Devoir charts)
• National bestseller in Canada (Maclean’s, BookNet Canada)
• CBC Books Canadian Writer to Watch in 2012
• Chapters Indigo Channel – Heather’s Pick in 2012
• BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime Pick (Readings from modern classics, new works
• by leading writers and literature from around the world) in June 2012
• In the Quebec top 10 for Canada Reads 2013

Her second book, co-written with Pascal Janovjak and entitled À toi, was published in September 2011. Born of a rare literary complicity, this meditation-correspondence sketches the journey of two children of exile and nomadism, through memories and anecdotes. The book is part of Radio-Canada’s 2016 Unmissable series and its audio version can be listened to online.

The author’s third book, mãn was a finalist for the Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie in 2014 and has been translated into thirteen languages. The English-language paperback version of the book is on the Barnes & Noble Discovery Pick list in the United States in the fall of 2015.

Mãn has three mothers, a teenager who gave birth to her and left her in the vegetable garden of a Buddhist temple on the banks of one of the branches of the Mekong, a nun who took her in and fed her before entrusting her to another woman, Maman, a teacher and spy. For her safety, Maman entrusts her to a Vietnamese restaurant owner living in Montreal who becomes her husband. In this new world, Mãn develops her natural talent for cooking, an art through which she learns not only to nourish the body but also to distil memories, emotions and sensuality into her dishes. And it is in this way that she discovers, when she meets a Parisian chef, the inextricable link between love and food and passionate love and its perils.

mãn is a refined, delicately beautiful story about learning to love.

AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS

• Finalist 2013 – Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie
• Finalist 2013 – Ouest-France Étonnants Voyageurs Prize
• Discovery Pick by Barnes & Noble USA in the fall of 2015
• MacEwan University (Canada) Book of the Year 2015
• Algonquin College (Canada) Book of the Year 2015

Published in 2016, this new book by Kim Thuy, speaker, tells the story of Vi, the youngest sister of three older brothers, the “little treasure” who finds herself in spite of herself in the great Life and its tumults. Leaving Saigon for Montreal, visiting Suzhou and Boston, growing up alongside ordinary heroes, she witnesses the immensity of the sea, the multiplicity of horizons, the uniqueness of sadness, the luxury of peace, the complexity of love, the infinity of possibilities and the violence of beauty. Like a good student, she looks, learns and receives. But will she ever know how to live this great Life?

AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS

• Winner 2017 – International North-South Prize, Pescarabruzzo Foundation
• Winner 2017 – Arlette-Cousture Prize
• Finalist 2018 – Scotiabank Giller Prize (Canada)
• Finalist 2017 – High School Literary Award – Île-de-France (France)
• Finalist 2016 – Prix des cinq continents de la Francophonie (international)

L’Autisme expliqué aux non-autistes (Autism explained to non-autistic people) was born of a project dear to the heart of Kim Thuy, speaker, who is the mother of an autistic teenager. By using the method developed by Brigitte Harrisson and Lise St-Charles, specialists in autism and founders of SACCADE, she was able to understand her son Valmond and make him understand her.

Kim Thúy encouraged the two specialists, one of whom is herself autistic, to share their vision in an accessible book to provide parents of autistic children, those working with people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and, more broadly, the general public, with a unique tool for communicating and understanding this neurological disorder.

Kim Thúy offers us more than 50 recipes from her native country, often accompanied by a short text, an excerpt from a book or an anecdote, thus opening the door to the writer’s intimate and singular universe. With the collaboration of Michelle Bouffard, sommelier, the writer proposes Vietnamese food and wine pairings, as well as a presentation of rarer ingredients and their substitutes. She also presents different varieties of vermicelli and noodles, herbs and fruits, to the delight of Vietnamese food lovers.

AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS

Winner 2019 – The Gourmand Cookbook Awards in the C18 category
Asia (Canada)
Winner 2018 – Prix Eugénie Brazier – category Prix de la Francophonie
et d’Ailleurs (France)
Winner 2018 – Måltidsakademien – Best Cookbook
in translation (Sweden)
Winner 2018 – Taste of Canada / Regional and Cultural Cookbooks
Finalist 2020 – Taste of Canada / Cookbooks
regional and cultural (English language)
Selection 2018 – 30 Best Books selected by the critics,
Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden)
2019 / Self-esteem and the Autistic
After L’Autisme expliqué aux non-autistes Kim Thúy renewed her collaboration with the two autism specialists, this time on a book about the construction of an autistic person’s self, through her own experiences as a parent of an autistic teenager.

If Autism Explained to Non-Autistic People was a lifeline for many parents and caregivers, helping them to understand why certain behaviours are observed and so often decried, this second book explores the possibility of a better existence for autistic people in the neurotypical world. The reality of the autistic person must be at the heart of the interventions, to help them build their identity and their self-esteem. This book shows that the two fundamental aspects of the autistic person’s self-esteem, competence in areas that are important to him or her and validation from significant others, will lead to the development of social skills.

Kim Thúy’s first illustrated book, Le Poisson et l’oiseau (The Fish and the Bird) was born of a dream of the writer’s where a little girl had forgotten to close the door of her bird’s cage. Nearby, in its bowl, the goldfish tries to converse with the bird. How can they play together with all the differences between them? How can they love each other when they have nothing in common? The answer lies somewhere in the spread of the bird’s wings and the grace of the fish’s fins.

The Fish and the Bird takes the form of a poem that pays tribute to beauty and difference. It has been masterfully put into images by Rogé.

Written in her distinctive style, Kim Thuy’s dazzling and formally complex new novel reveals a fascination with the bonds that bind us together. Em, which in Vietnamese means “little brother”, “little sister” or “beloved”, explores the ways in which humans traumatised by war and exile are driven to seek love and family when their past catches up with them. Through the intertwined fates of a family of characters, the novel is as much about Operation Babylift, the evacuation of thousands of biracial orphans from Saigon in April 1975, as it is about the nail polish and nail salon industry and the rubber plantations of old Indochina.