Elevator in Sà̀i Gòn
Thuận, 1967-2024
Book
A young Vietnamese woman living in Paris travels back to Saigon for her estranged mother's funeral. Her brother had recently built a new house in Saigon, and staged a grotesquely lavish ceremony for their mother to inaugurate what was rumoured to be the first elevator in a private home in the country. But shortly after the ceremony, in the middle of the night, their mother mysteriously fell down the elevator shaft, dying in an instant. After the funeral, the daughter becomes increasingly fascinated with her family's history, and begins to investigate and track an enigmatic figure, Paul Polotski, who emerges from her mother's notebook. Like an amateur sleuth, she trails Polotski through the streets of Paris, sneaking behind him as he goes about his usual routines. Meanwhile, she also researches her mother's past-zigzagging across France and Asia-trying to find clues to the spiralling, deepening questions her mother left behind unanswered-and perhaps unanswerable. Still banned in Vietnam, Elevator in Saigon is a thrilling novel combining elements of the detective thriller, historical romance, postcolonial ghost story, and a scathing satire of life in a communist state.
Main title:
Elevator in Sà̀i Gòn / Thuận ; translated from the Vietnamese by Nguyẽ̂n An Lý.
Author:
Thuận, 1967-, authorNguyẽ̂n An Lý, translator
Work:
Imprint:
New York : New Directions Publishing Corporation, [2024]©2024
Collation:
171 pages ; 21 cm
Notes:
Originally published in Vietnamese as Thang máy Sài Gòn by Nha Nam & NXB Hoi Nha Van.First published in New Directions paperbook 1607 in 2024."NDP1607"--Spine.Translated from the Vietnamese.
ISBN:
9780811238540 (pbk)9780811238540 (paperback)
Dewey class:
895.92234
LC class:
PL4378.9.T57493
Language:
EnglishVietnamese
Added title:
BRN:
833670
| Location | Collection | Call number | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| narrm ngarrgu Library and Family Services | Fiction | THUA | Available |