The Mountains Sing: Runner-up for the 2021 Dayton Literary Peace Prize

Siendo la escritora poeta cambia la perspectiva de los demás escritores. Nunca se pierde la esperanza, aun en los momentos más aterradores. son episodios históricos muy importantes, algo que no se tiene muy claro en Occidente. El hecho que la autora sea vietnamita nos da la perspectiva más correcta. Recomendadísimo. IRMA DICKINSON

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 As someone living in the West I feel as though a certain narrative has been pushed about the 'Vietnam War' and not much attention has been shown to the victims that had been suffering for a long time. Before the Americans it was the French, the Japanese, the Chinese. This book was a real eye-opener for me because of the way it shows the characters resilience, their trauma, their suffering, and even their hope during the war. I was enamoured by this novel and the way it portrayed suffering so holistically, with the trauma of everyone involved in the war being explored, whether it's a mother gone to fight, an uncle returning injured, a young girl left behind or a grieving mother and grandma. It was very emotional, and each character had suffered in their own unique way, providing a tragic view of the suffering during wartime. I also think the author did a beautiful job in decolonising Vietnamese history shining light on the politics and land reforms going on at the time, whilst also providing rich insight into the experiences of Vietnamese people. Whilst this may be classed as fiction, it’s not really because these are all real-life things that happened. The reforms were real, the experiences were more than real. The novel is so tragically beautiful and highly emotional; Quế Mai wrote this with the intention of taking back the narrative and I think she achieved that. I especially loved how unapologetic Quế Mai was with the way she writes in diacritics and uses Vietnamese words. Language is the very essence of a culture their pride and not simplifying words and spelling them properly/correctly is important in decolonising literature. It fully immerses the reader into Vietnamese culture, and I think its beautifully done. I really felt like I was transported there. I was fully enraptured by what I was reading and couldn’t put the book down. The Mountains Sing is one of the best books I’ve read this year and I could not recommend it enough, truly. It prompted and encouraged me to do my own research on Vietnam and this novel is just amazing. It was written for a purpose, and I think it achieved that perfectly.

I will read this book again. Beautiful writing, story, characters, and relationships. It is not an easy read though, as it deals with the history of Viêt Nam in the 20th century. But it's a really good story. I can't wait to read the author's other book!

I started this book right before my trip to Vietnam in February 2026. My short duration in the country was all the more enriched by whatever I could read in the sparse moments of rest in between a tightly packed journey. When I was researching about Vietnamese history, a lot of the narrative was dominated by the American genocide and I wanted to know more including the myths and legends which shape the Vietnamese culture. The book’s opening made me to expect a lot more focus on the American genocide but I was pleasantly proven wrong. It not just talks about the history of the occupants’ oppression throughout the 20th century but also how Vietnam itself got polarized into a bloody state of affairs. The characters of grandmother (who has witnessed her share of horrors perpetrated by the Japanese occupants, later by the Great Famine and the corrupt land reforms) and the granddaughter (who is growing up in the ravaged years of the American genocide) are at once brave, adorable and heart rending. Amidst all the chaos, their sincere effort to build a life out of nothing, to hold on to a hope, speaks of resilience and a sense of community embedded deep in Vietnamese culture. The writing is simple and lyrical. It invokes Vietnamese maxims, her customs, the flavors of food, the aroma of flowers and the shade of her trees. The author employs this beautiful lyrical device to hold on to the familiar amidst extraordinarily alienating circumstances. This authentic flavor of the book shall stay with me for long. The book never acknowledges, let alone celebrate, historical dates, for instance of the Vietnamese declaration of freedom against the French or the reunification of the country. This unrecognition felt intentional. It possibly tells how such dates are just sleights of history, hollow by all means, when in actual, more serious blows awaited the country in a close queue. The author uses the Trần family as a metaphor for Vietnam not to mention that the fate of the Trần family has also been the recorded fate of millions of such Vietnamese families. A country battered on multiple occasions, ripped by ideologies and yet one that offered resistance through rather ingenious means. She learnt to build herself time and again, never forgetting the past and yet not letting its horrors to embitter her. She has inspiringly embraced a futurity. I will always remember this one particular moment during my trip. During a long bus ride, opportune to continue with my reading, I came across the section where the grandmother narrates the legend of Hanoi’s Hoàn Kiếm Lake to her granddaughter. It revolves around a Cụ Rùa, a giant turtle of the lake who reminds an ancient emperor that the possession of weapons never leads to peace and asks him to return his sword. With the sword, the emperor already drove the Chinese occupants away. The weapon met its purpose and the emperor returned the sword to the lake. It is therefore also known as the Lake of the Returned Sword. A few moments later, I reached this legendary lake. The place dazzled with a new meaning for me. Surrounding it, were the bustling and ever vibrant Old Quarters. I just couldn’t get over the fact I landed at a beautiful crossroad where my reading journey synced with my physical one on its own volition! The very moment held a memory of a lifetime.

A beautifully told tale of the Tran family’s journey through the twentieth century. A story of triumph and tragedy, sorrow and joy, and the monumental struggle to overcome the most brutal vicissitudes of life. Although the struggles are different, the Tran family’s trials are reminiscent of the Joad family in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and the Wang family in Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth. It is a story about how families come together during times of great tribulations and the lengths they will go to survive, and to remain together. The tale is about the bonds of unconditional love and support that define a family more than its bloodlines. When young Huong (please forgive me if I Anglicize the names) and Grandmother Dieu Lan must flee to the village of Hoa Binh, Huong wants to know how they will eat on the journey. Grandmother reassures her not to worry, “Farmers there will feed us what they have. In times of crisis, people are kind.” This reassurance is similar to Ma Joad in Grapes, “if you're in trouble or hurt or need—go to poor people. They're the only ones that'll help—the only ones.” Grandmother Dieu Lan, like Wang Lung in The Good Earth, came from a family of farmers and had great respect for her family. This theme of our human connectedness to the land and to our families runs throughout the novel. While Dieu Lan and Huong are in the village of Hoa Binh, Huong wants to do the things the farmers’ children are involved in, like riding water buffalos and climbing trees. And like children the world over, she is filled with pride when praised. Que Mai also shows that farming is also a hard life; it is literally a twenty-four-seven proposition and can age you well before your time. In another moment, when Dieu Lan and Huong are discussing the war, grandmother reveals, “Want to know what I think? ... I don’t believe in violence. None of us has the right to take away the life of another human being.” This theme of trying to maintain our humanity is a thread that weaves its way through the story being so adeptly woven by Ms. Nguyen. The Mountain Sings is a story about the strength and wisdom of the women of Vietnam, just as Ma Joad held the Joad clan together and O-lan held the Wang family together, it is so with Dieu Lan holding the Tran family together. Dieu Lan holds it together during the worst of times and nourishes its prosperity during the times of blessing. The story is written in a poetic, personal, and passionate form. I could sit and listen to the Vietnamese language all day, as it is both melodic and soulful. Que Mai finds words and combinations of words that sing to each other on the page in both Vietnamese and English and resonate in the hearts of humanity. Ms. Nguyen has expanded my understanding of family. I now have a greater appreciation for the untold devastation and suffering the Corona Virus has caused for families, and a heart full of hope that I will be around to hug my extended family after it has passed. Highly recommended.