Anam

A profound meditation on forgiveness and forgetting . . . Dao’s extraordinary debut novel combines fiction and history to chronicle his Vietnamese grandparents’ traumatic life. * The Observer * Andre Dao’s Anam . . . confirms his status as a young writer to watch . . . Blending fiction and essay, Anam is about a grandson trying to learn his family story and explores ideas of home, exile and identity. * The Sydney Morning Herald * This impressive novel illuminates lives that rarely come to the attention of readers. Braiding fiction, essay, family stories and history, the result is a profoundly moving remembrance of things past as well as an invitation to look to the future. There is kindness and insight on every page. -- Michelle de Kretser, author of <i>Questions of Travel</i> Admirable in its scope, Anam melds theory, fiction and essay . . . which come together for a universal experience of loss and belonging. * The Irish Times * Riveting, wise, transporting, Anam turns its back on the memory industrial complex and keeps the past unassimilable, both dangerous and fragile. -- Maria Tumarkin, author of <i>Axiomatic</i> Anam is a beautiful book. I loved its hypnotic rhythms, its restlessness, the way memories, dreams and ideas, like waves, kept riding in over the top of one another, undoing and complicating everything. It is the work of a soulful and scrupulous mind. -- Miles Allinson, author of <i>Fever of Animals</i> Dao has a mesmeric and unique style that is both brave and profound, a style that captures the voices of those that may not always have had one… A magnificent debut. * The Australian * André Dao’s ambitious debut… offers something defiant and distinct, unsentimental yet tender... Nothing in Australian literature has challenged me in a way that feels so profoundly personal. * The Saturday Paper * Anam gently pulls us into a deepening flow of memory… untangling the endlessly knotted problems of memory, inheritance and home… Anam is a rigorous and generous book, which will sit with you well after reading. * Melbourne Age * Uncompromising and honest, Anam is a brilliant book of immense scope…. Original and convincing... in terms of thematic, linguistic, and cultural scope, Anam is a fine example of what a global novel should be like. It beautifully connects East and West; Europe and Australasia; Oceania and the Middle East. * The Conversation *