Before this latest novel – described by Guardian reviewer Isabel Hilton as “a moving and extraordinary evocation of the 20th-century tragedy of China” – came Dogs at the Perimeter, which dealt with another great tragedy, the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s.ĭo Not Say We Have Nothing opens in 1990 in the home of Marie, who disarmingly informs us that her Chinese nickname means “charming mineral”. Though virtually unknown in the UK, the 42-year-old writer has won awards in her native Canada for a small but scorching oeuvre dealing with some of the toughest history of the modern age. The novel is just out and she is feeling “befuddled and amazed” by her appearance on the Man Booker list. Thien is on her way to speak at the Edinburgh International book festival when we meet. The games start with the title of the novel which is, Thien explains, the English transliteration of a line from the anthem of the Communist party of China, which was translated via Russian from the French socialist anthem “The Internationale”.
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