Wandering Souls Synopsis
An extraordinary and heartbreaking debut novel about the bonds that connect people even when separated by seas or death itself.
There are the goodbyes and then the fishing out of the bodies – everything in between is speculation.
One night, not long after the last American troops leave Vietnam, siblings Anh, Thanh and Minh flee their village and embark on a perilous boat journey to Hong Kong. Their parents and four younger siblings make the crossing in another vessel but as weeks go by it becomes clear that only one party has survived the voyage.
Anh, Thanh and Minh suddenly find themselves alone in the world, without family or home. They travel on, navigating refugee camps and resettlement centres until, by a twist of fate, they arrive in Thatcher’s Britain. Here they must somehow build new lives with only each other to turn to, but will that be enough in a place that doesn’t seem to want them?
In this piercing debut, the siblings’ faltering journey is deftly interwoven with the voice of their lost younger brother, Dao, following them from a place between the living and the dead, and the records of an unknown researcher intent on gathering the strands of their story. Revelatory and inventive, Wandering Souls paints a heart-wrenching portrait of a family in unimaginable adversity while exploring the healing power of stories.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781250863461 |
| Publication date: |
21st March 2023 |
| Author: |
Cecile Pin |
| Publisher: |
Henry Holt and Company |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
226 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Historical Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Cecile Pin Press Reviews
'A debut in name only, Wandering Souls is an astute and sure-footed excavation of family, selfhood, and loss in the shadow of colonial violence. It is also a deeply humane and genre-defying work of love and uncompromising hope through a long-overdue portrayal of Vietnamese life in the UK. A mighty achievement' Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous
'A heartbreaking novel about Vietnamese siblings who arrive as refugees to Thatcher's Britain. Chronicling the family's life right up until the present day, it's a deeply affecting reckoning with history' i-D Magazine, Books to watch out for
'Meticulously researched and beautifully imagined, Wandering Soul is a deeply affecting debut, a restless inquiry into the nature of loss, kinship and survival' Tash Aw, author of We, the Survivors
'Clear-hearted and moving, Wandering Souls tells one of the most important stories of our times, and you can feel, as you read, all it has taken Pin to write it' Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days
'Wandering Souls is deeply moving and deeply generous. Pin writes about the Vietnamese diaspora in the UK - its past and its present - with love and care. I cried reading it' Yara Rodrigues Fowler, author of there are more things
'A searing, sweeping and intimate story of such heart and scope. Measured, multilayered and beautiful ' Rachel Long, author of My Darling from the Lions
'A beautiful meditation on the ties that bind us and the circumstances that separate us' Helena Lee, editor of East Side Voices
'This deeply affecting novel charts one family's displacement, estrangement, and return: loss passed on like an inheritance to successive generations. Wandering Souls is more than testament, more than fiction. I am full of admiration' Jeet Thayil, author of Narcopolis
