Vietnamese writer shares love of homeland in award-winning English-language book
A dream Mai, originally from Ninh Binh Province in northern Vietnam, wrote “The Mountains Sing” as a way to spread Vietnamese literature and culture by recounting the story of a Vietnamese family’s journey through the twentieth century, including their trials and tribulations during the French Colonial period, the separation of the North and the South, the Vietnam War, and the present day. Her inspiration for the novel was a deep frustration that language barriers were a major obstacle for international readers who wished to access Vietnamese literature. The books on Vietnam that English-language readers did have access to were primarily about the Vietnam War and written by Western writers who gave their Vietnamese characters little-to-no voice, using them mostly as background characters. Mai also felt that Hollywood movies often depicted Vietnamese women as victims or “blank characters,” without the ability to make their own decisions. For many years, Mai and various American p