Touching Beauty

Kim Thúy is a literary phenomenon, rising in her first decade of writing to a level of international recognition that few Québécois writers ever attain. The Vietnamese-born author’s novels have garnered literary prize recognition and been translated from French into twenty-nine languages in nearly forty countries. Touching Beauty is the first collection to focus solely on Thúy and her economical yet poetic storytelling style that expresses both the traumatic and the beautiful. Her writings, which manage to be culturally specific all while speaking to the fundamentals of the human condition, are examined within the context of what is known as “migrant literature” in Canada and are situated within the history of Vietnamese literature in French that grew out of the colonial period. Chapters explore food, identity, gender, and the role of writing in Thúy’s life and work. Thúy herself contributes an unpublished poem and extended interview that focus on her ongoing struggle to find, and write, beauty amidst war, migration, poverty, and loss. Touching Beauty maps the themes that have, to date, animated a literary career of global relevance and enduring value and encourages a deeper appreciation of Thúy’s writing.

Touching Beauty is the first collection of critical essays on the work of Vietnamese-born Quebec author Kim Thúy. It examines the themes that have animated a literary career of global relevance and enduring value and encourages a deeper appreciation of her writing. Thúy contributes a previously unpublished poem and an extended interview.

Miléna Santoro is professor at Georgetown University. Jack A. Yeager is professor emeritus at Louisiana State University.