Do Not Say We Have Nothing

A Novel

by Madeleine Thien

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Pub Date Oct 11 2016 | Archive Date Oct 31 2016

W. W. Norton & Company

General Fiction (Adult) | Literary Fiction

Description

“In a single year, my father left us twice. The first time, to end his marriage, and the second, when he took his own life. I was ten years old.” Master storyteller Madeleine Thien takes us inside an extended family in China, showing us the lives of two successive generations—those who lived through Mao’s Cultural Revolution and their children, who became the students protesting in Tiananmen Square. At the center of this epic story are two young women, Marie and Ai-Ming. Through their relationship Marie strives to piece together the tale of her fractured family in present-day Vancouver, seeking answers in the fragile layers of their collective story. Her quest will unveil how Kai, her enigmatic father, a talented pianist, and Ai-Ming’s father, the shy and brilliant composer, Sparrow, along with the violin prodigy Zhuli were forced to reimagine their artistic and private selves during China’s political campaigns and how their fates reverberate through the years with lasting consequences. With maturity and sophistication, humor and beauty, Thien has crafted a novel that is at once intimate and grandly political, rooted in the details of life inside China yet transcendent in its universality.

Advance Praise

“Extraordinary.... It recalls the panoramic scale and domestic minutiae of the great 19th-century Russian writers.... A highly suspenseful drama... as courageous and far-reaching as principled resistance itself.” - Financial Times
"stories, music, and mathematics weave together to tell one family's tale within the unfolding of recent Chinese history....Filled with intrigue, shifting loyalties, broken families, and unbroken resistance, this novel is beautifully poetic and as carefully constructed as the Bach sonatas that make frequent appearance in the text. Thien's reach—though epic —does not extend beyond her capacity, resulting in a lovely fugue of a book that meditates on fascism, resistance, and personhood." - Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Extraordinary.... It recalls the panoramic scale and domestic minutiae of the great 19th-century Russian writers.... A highly suspenseful drama... as courageous and far-reaching as principled...

Available Editions

EDITION	Other Format
ISBN	9780393609882
PRICE	$26.95 (USD)
PAGES	480

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Featured Reviews

Carol S, Librarian

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Beautifully written story about families....Stunning prose, heartfelt and lovely. The characters are well developed and real. Epic. Expanisve and deep without the characters getting lost in the story. I've not read another book by this author, but I will. This should win every award.

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Cathy S, Librarian

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Madeleine Thien tells the saga of three generations of a continuous politically contrived cycle of strife, questioning, and finally acquiescence in this gracefully written historical novel. I read in horror of what I might read next, but was grimly compelled continue. This book will grab you in the way no other book will. Anyone who knows about the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, knows the story can’t go well. It is like reading a novel about the Titanic. You don’t want to continue because in your mind you know there is no way it can turn out good, it is just a question of how terrible it will be. This book ends as gentle as it begins.
Reading this novel and putting it in the context of the social justice struggles the “First World Counties” are currently battling brings the current issues into a very different perspective. Those who are privileged to enjoy even the basic political freedoms afford to them, should truly feel lucky for their fortunate circumstances. Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a humbling, powerful and brave piece of literature.

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