Anam is a 2023 debut novel by the Australian author André Dao.[1]

It was the winner of the 2024 Prime Minister's Literary Awards for Fiction.[2]

Synopsis

The novel is based on the life of the author's grandfather who was imprisoned in Vietnam for 10 years by the Communist regime for being a Catholic intellectual. While writing his grandfather's story Dao is also studying in Cambridge U.K. for a master's degree in law and living with his wife and daughter.

The novel covers a time period from the 1930s to the present day, and from Vietnam, to England and Australia.

Critical reception

Scott McCulloch, writing for Australian Book Review, notes that the novel "deals in the inconsistencies of memory and perception" which goes on "to create a sprawling meditation on how remembrance is carried and lived intergenerationally, between countries and displacements, between the living and the dead." He concluded: "Dao collates threads and traces that comprise, as in nature, a laboratory of life. His treatment of place fields an elliptical and coherent storytelling, entangled as such to explore the fictional nature of belonging."[3]

In The Guardian Joseph Cummins called the novel "a deeply personal meditation on family memory", and while "it takes the reader on a wild and at times bewildering ride, it is equally a warm, tender book about family."[4]

See also

Notes

  • Dedication: For Ong Ba Noi

Awards

References

  1. ^ "Anam by André Dao". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 22 March 2025.
  2. ^ a b Burke, Kelly (12 September 2024). "Prime Minister's Literary awards 2024: Andre Dao wins $80,000 for debut novel Anam". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 22 March 2025.
  3. ^ ""Beyond before: André Dao's amorphous spaces by Scott McCulloch"". Australian Book Review, July 2023. Retrieved 22 March 2025.
  4. ^ ""Anam by André Dao review – decades-spanning family epic examines the difficulties of memory"". The Guardian, 19 May 2023. Retrieved 22 March 2025.
  5. ^ Galvin, Nick (2 July 2024). "First timers and indie publishers dominate Miles Franklin shortlist". The Age. Retrieved 22 March 2025.
Allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anam_(novel)
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