The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai, Winner of the 2021 Prize

One family, two generations of women and a war that will change their lives forever

Ha Noi, 1972. As war breaks out in Viet Nam, twelve-year-old Huong clings to her grandmother in an improvised shelter as American bombs fall around them. For her grandmother, the experience is horribly familiar. This is a woman who knows what it takes to hold a family together as a country crumbles. And now, coming of age in a nation rocked by conflict, Huong must do the same.

With the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee's Pachinko and the haunting beauty of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, The Mountains Sing tells the enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Tran family, intimate, lyrical and bursting with life.