Former Vietnamese refugee in Malaysia reflects on losing your past and future

‘I don’t need readers to understand, I just need them to feel something,’ says Vietnamese-Canadian author Thuy at her home in Longueuil, Quebec. Photo: AFP

As conflict pushes millions across the globe from Afghanistan to Syria to flee their homes, award-winning author Kim Thuy says “refugee literature” has the power to restore lost identities and reveal the potential of these “superhumans”. Thuy – who escaped Saigon as a 10-year-old in the aftermath of the Vietnam War – predicted that the world’s attention would soon drift from crises such as Afghanistan, leaving those who fled the Taliban voiceless and battling to prove themselves in their new lives.

The novelist – who was among Vietnam’s thousands of “boat people” and spent months in a refugee camp in Malaysia in the 1970s – has spent her writing career gathering threads of stories of Vietnamese forced to flee, trying to illuminate the lives of communities she says are overlooked.