The Mountains Sing

This “moving and riveting” book shares a layered, epic, multigenerational story of the Vietnam war and its aftermath (Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Sympathizer)​

With the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko or Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and the lyrical beauty of Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan, The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Trần family, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War. Trần Diệu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Nội, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the Hồ Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that tore apart not just her beloved country, but also her family.

Vivid, gripping, and steeped in the language and traditions of Việt Nam, The Mountains Sing brings to life the human costs of this conflict from the point of view of the Vietnamese people themselves, while showing us the true power of kindness and hope.

The Mountains Sing is celebrated Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s first novel in English.

New York Times Editors’ Choice Selection
Winner of the 2020 Lannan Literary Awards Fellowship 

"[An] absorbing, stirring novel . . . that, in more than one sense, remedies history." —The New York Times Book Review

Born into the Red Delta of Northern Việt Nam, Dr. Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai grew up in the Mekong Delta, Southern Việt Nam. She is a writer and translator who has published twelve books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction in Vietnamese and English and has translated seven books. Her last book, The Mountains Sing, was an international bestseller, runner-up for the 2021 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, winner of the 2021 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, the 2020 Lannan Literary Award Fellowship, and other prizes. Her writing has been translated into more than 15 languages and has appeared in major publications including the New York Times. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. While working on her most recent novel, Dust Child, Quế Mai helped set up a scholarship program for Amerasians in Việt Nam (the Amerasian Hope & Future Scholarship). For more information, visit: www.nguyenphanquemai.com