A Warm Welcome 30 Years Later: Kim Thúy's Ru

We are in the middle of a provincial election campaign here in Quebec, where two of the big issues are whether the province should hold another referendum on separating from Canada, and whetherto adopt  a new "Charter of a Lay Society" which proposes banning public employees from wearing "ostentatious" religious symbols. 

Both of the issues are divisive but the first one has been around for as long as I can remember.  The other, though, is playing into a  current of xenophobia that I thought Quebec had grown out of.When we arrived at the end of the 1960s, the province was full of great ideas for building a better society, open to the world where Quebeckers would be the master of their own house, maîtres chez nous.   In recent weeks, I'd been wondering where all that has gone.


Then this week, I re-read Ru by Kim Thúy in preparation for leading a book discussion at the Atwater Library and I had my hope somewhat renewed

After the end of the various conflicts in Vietnam, 110,000 "Boat People" were settled in Canada between 1975 and 1985. Because Vietnam had been a French colony and many of the refugees spoke French, Quebec took in a large number. As a result Kim Thúy's family from cosmopolitan Saigon was settled in the small town of Granby in 1980, and therein lies a tale.

Her novel is dedicated to "gens du pays," the affectionate name for the people of this province.  Short and  lyrical, the book novel tells of the experiences of a family with strong resemblances to her own.  Trained as  a lawyer and for a decade the owner of a restaurant, she took up writing at the suggestion of her Quebecker husband when she was exhausted from throwing herself too enthusiastically into her projects.  The result won the 2010 Governor General's Prize for French fiction.  Two year's later Sheila Fischman translated it into English and has been winning prizes right and left ever since.

Don't expect a straight-ahead immigrant saga if you pick up the book.  Do be prepared for  some brilliant images of life in a refugee camp, disconcerting glimpses of family dramas begun in Vietnam and continued in Canada, and amused but affectionate memories of a welcome in this strange cold country. 

This is a book to savor, and to hold up as a shield against despair.  People can overcome immense obstacles, whether they be refugees or those who welcome them.