On November 13, 2024, Kim Thúy addressed a delighted crowd of some 600 people, of which almost 200 were online, at Ottawa’s Rogers Centre. Thúy, who is a prolific author and winner of several prestigious awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award, had been invited to speak by uOttawa’s Alumni Engagement team. Masterfully hosted by the University’s Associate Vice-President, Francophonie Yves Pelletier, the evening unfolded in a friendly atmosphere, with Thúy doing an admirable job of communicating her infectious zest for life.
Thúy holds degrees in translation and law, and worked as a seamstress, interpreter, lawyer and restaurant owner before becoming an author and television host. With great humility and generosity, she related how the trials she went through and the bold choices she made enriched her life and made her the free woman she is today. Thúy’s loyal readers will have recognized some of the memorable stories she told in her first novel, Ru, which was published in 2009, translated into some 30 languages, distributed in 45 countries and adapted for the screen in 2023.
Awarded France’s Chevalière de l’Ordre des arts et des lettres for her dedication, she began her talk by recalling the Vietnam War, which pitted North and South Vietnam against each other from 1954 to 1975, and which changed the course of her life. Thúy was 10 years’ old when she and her family fled their homeland aboard a fishing boat, like hundreds of thousands of other boat people. “We were lucky!” she remarked. “After four days at sea in our 10-metre-long boat with 218 people, we landed on a beach in Malaysia. In case our boat was attacked by pirates, my mother had hidden diamonds in the collars of my brothers’ shirts and in a pink acrylic bracelet she had made herself, which I wore during the journey.”
Arriving in Canada: A blank page
A few months later, in March 1979, Thúy and her family arrived in Granby, Quebec, with dazzling snow flurries pelting down. “It was like a blank page on which I could write a new story,” she exclaimed, adding that this first moment in Canada set the stage for the rest of her life. “Despite our sorry state, the people who came to welcome us hugged us and looked at us as if we were treasures come down from heaven. I’d never seen myself as beautiful as I was in those people’s eyes. In a split second, they gave us back the humanity and dignity we’d lost along the way.”
Kim Thúy has indelible memories of the love she received from Granby’s residents, who would continually invite her family over for supper or to visit the Granby Zoo. “To put down roots, my family accepted every invitation,” Thúy explained. “One day, my brothers and I were invited to go camping, without knowing what it was all about. When we got back, we told our parents that the campsite was like a refugee camp: there was no electricity, no water and no toilets, and we had to sleep outside with the mosquitoes. We felt like we’d been punished,” she said, laughter erupting in the room. “My father then told us, ‘Camping is really proof that we’ve come to the best country in the world, because people here are so comfortable that they create situations where they can inflict discomfort on themselves,’” she continued, to general hilarity. Thúy seems to have inherited her father’s wisdom and his ability to go with the flow and seize opportunities along the way.
Questions from the audience
At the lecture, the audience put questions to Thúy through two outstanding University of Ottawa students: Kawtar El Mouttaki (BA Lettres françaises) and Jasmine Hupé (BA Comm). When asked “How to get out of indecision?” Thúy replied, “Just decide. It may be the wrong choice at the time, but you never know where your path will take you,” she said. “When I opened my restaurant, driven by the desire to share the beauty of Vietnamese cuisine, I lost a lot of money and burned myself out. But the restaurant led me to writing, because it was my customers who encouraged me to write. Even a bad decision is good because it gets you somewhere, whereas with indecision, you’re stuck!”
Thúy’s joy in the face of adversity prompted a question about her exceptional ability to preserve her mental health. “When you find yourself in extreme situations, like in a refugee camp where thousands of people are crammed together, you can’t allow yourself to experience emotions or sensations because if you do, you won’t be able to survive. It was in Quebec that I rediscovered my ability to feel. The literary critics and students who analyze my texts also help me to understand myself. What’s more, I cried a lot during the filming of Ru. The movie gave me the chance to experience in my fifties the emotions I should have experienced as a child.”
Lastly, Thúy confided that she would like to explore the value of immigration and refugees in a future literary project. “People often talk about refugees as being helpless, weak people, but for me they’re top athletes. First of all, it takes a lot of determination to make the decision to leave one’s country, and then they survived the sea, hunger and thirst, walked hundreds of kilometres, climbed walls.... To me, refugees are superhumans who quickly enrich the countries that welcome them.”
Thúy was warmly applauded by the audience, who could have listened to her for much longer. As a token of appreciation, the University presented her with a beautiful necklace from Sage Jewelry, a company founded by uOttawa alumna Sophie Longtin.