Bargains! PROMOTIONS
Thun was born in 1967 in Hanoi. She studied at Pyatigorsk University and at la Sorbonne in Paris. She is the author of ten novels and a recipient of the Writers' Union Prize, the highest award in Vietnamese literature. Chinatown, her debut novel in English, won the 2023 ALTA National Translation Award. She currently lives in Paris.
"Elevator in Saì Gòn is a literal and structural exquisite corpse, capturing Vietnam's eventful period from 1954 to 2004. Mimicking an elevator's movement, the novel heightens our yearning for romance and mystery, while unflinchingly exposing such narrative shaft. Channeling Marguerite Duras and Patrick Modiano, the book also offers a dead-on tour of a society cunningly leaping from one ideological mode to the next. As if challenging Rick's parting words to Ilsa in Casablanca, Thuận's sophomore novel in English implies that geopolitical debacles might have been mitigated if personal relations were held in more elevated regard than ""a hill of beans."" — Thúy Đinh (editor-at-large at Asymptote, coeditor at Da Màu Magazine, freelance critic, and literary translator) -- Thúy Đinh * NPR *"
