Em

A novel of the emotional intricacies of trauma and exile; a love story borne of the legacy of violence from the Vietnam war and the North American Vietnamese diaspora.

From the award-winning author of the international bestselling novel Ru.

Shortlisted for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award
Finalist of the New Academy Prize in Literature
Finalist Scotiabank Giller Prize
Winner of the Prix du Grand Public—Salon du livre de Montréal
Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction
Winner of the Grand Prix RTL-Lire

Emma-Jade and Louis are born into the havoc of the Vietnam War. Orphaned, saved and cared for by adults coping with the chaos of Saigon in free-fall, they become children of the Vietnamese diaspora. Em is not a romance in any usual sense of the word, but it is a word whose homonym—aime, love—resonates on every page, a book powered by love in the larger sense. A portrait of Vietnamese identity emerges that is wholly remarkable, honed in wartime violence that borders on genocide, and then by the ingenuity, sheer grit and intelligence of Vietnamese former refugees who go on to build some of the most powerful small business empires in North America.

In many ways, Em is Kim Thúy's most personal book, the one in which she trusts her readers enough to share with them not only the pervasive love she feels but also the rage and the horror at what she and so many other children of the Vietnam War had to live through. Written in Thúy's trademark prose-poetic style, Em reveals her fascination with connection. With characters linked by birth and destiny, the novel zigzags between the rubber plantations of Indochina, daily life in Saigon during the war as people find ways to survive and help each other, the evacuation of thousands of biracial orphans from Saigon in April 1975 via Operation Babylift, and today's global nail polish and nail salon industry that is largely driven by former Vietnamese refugees.

Here are human lives shaped both by unspeakable trauma and also by the beautiful sacrifices of those who made sure some of these children survived and thrived.