The Mountains Sing, the first novel in English by Vietnam-born Nguyen Phan Mai Que Mai, is a family saga woven into the history of Vietnam and told primarily through the eyes of a grandmother and a granddaughter (who seems modeled partly on the author’s life growing up in Vietnam). The novel spans three generations, from the 1940s to the period after American soldiers withdrew. While readers of a certain age will know something about the Vietnam war, most likely will not know about the famine in Vietnam during the 1940s and the strife caused by the Land Reforms in the 1950s, subjects that have often been censored in Vietnam. Pulitzer-Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen calls this novel the Vietnamese version of The Grapes of Wrath. What I liked most about this novel was seeing events from the point of view of ordinary people in Vietnam who experienced them. Here’s what Kirkus Reviews says:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/qu-mai-phan-nguyn/the-mountains-sing/
