Certainty

Madeleine Thien’s stunning debut novel fulfills all her early promise and introduces a young novelist of vision, maturity, and style. Gail Lim, a producer of radio documentaries in present-day Vancouver, finds herself haunted by events in her parents’ past in wartorn Asia, a past which remains a mystery that fiercely grips her imagination.  As a child, Gail’s father, Matthew Lim, wandered the Leila Road and the jungle fringe with his lovely Ani, a girl whose early bond with Matthew will affect his life always. As children, they found themselves together under the terrifying shadow of war in Japanese-occupied Sandakan, Malaysia. The war shatters their families and splits the two apart until years later, when they remeet only to be separated again. The legacy of their connection is later inherited by Matthew’s wife, Clara, in unexpected ways.  Gail’s journey to unravel the mystery of her parents’ lives takes her to Amsterdam, where she meets the war photographer Sipke, who tells his story of Ani and their relationship, which began in Jakarta, a story that will bring Gail face to face with the complications in her own life and lead her closer to the truth.  Vivid, poignant, wise, at once sweeping and intimate, Certainty is a novel about the legacies of loss, about the dislocations of war and the redemptive qualities of love. Thien reveals herself as a novelist of rare and potent talent.From the Hardcover edition.

Literature & Fiction

Madeleine Thien

Contemporary

Faber and Faber

Ai-Ming tells the story of her family in revolutionary China, from the crowded teahouses in the first days of Chairman Mao's ascent and the events leading to the Beijing demonstrations of 1989. It is a history of revolutionary idealism, music and silence, in which three musicians, the shy and brilliant composer Sparrow, the violin prodigy Zhuli and the enigmatic pianist Kai, struggle during China's relentless Cultural Revolution to remain loyal to one another; and to the music they have devoted their lives to.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Literary

Granta Books

Dogs at the Perimeter

One starless night Janies childhood was swept away by the terrors of the Khmer Rouge. Exiled from Phnom Penh, Janie and her family were forced to live out in the open: cold, hungry and under constant surveillance. Caught up in a political storm which brought starvation to millions, tore families apart and changed the world forever, Janie lost everyone she loved. Now, three decades later, Janies life in Montreal is unraveling. Weaving together the threads of Janies life, Dogs at the Perimeter evokes totalitarianism through the eyes of a little girl, and draws a remarkable map of the minds battle with memory, loss and the horrors of war.

Granta/Portobello Omes

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Books by Madeleine Thien