We went to montreal to meet in the train and despite the chilly weather we couldnt have wished for a wilma welcome. To the russia has been living in canada for over 40 years now how much she claims novels draw on her own experiences and memories. You were 10 when your family fled saigon and then will remember anything what happened in saigon was how was your life that when i left i was all that after my bird and then all that not all the enough to understand everything so when you sit down to write you can you have the freedom to reinvent. You know the stories between the little dots that you have of the memories but this saw vivid images and as children i think you have a very tunnel vision of things right and so i remember the smell of the kitchen the women how they would dress have they moved around and then i also have images of those tanks coming into town we only feel the fear of everybody and the worries and and on the day that we thought left of course my parents couldnt tell us that we were fleeing right but the tension was so dance that you can you know you know without anybody say anything and to have certainly all of the at the hopes in the house to be rumor you know to whisper they never talk anymore. Came to his childhood in saigon ended in 1975 when South Viet Nam fell to the communist north after 20 years the home city was renamed the main city. The 1500000 people who fled across the South China Sea were dubbed the boat people hundreds of thousands died the despair that drove the mom board and the survivors relief are hard to imagine. We never thought we would survive the boat trip so already when we arrived in malaysia. It was a bonus you know a 2nd chance to life and as we got off the boat and the boat broke up 15 minutes after we got off so when you standing on the beach and you see that boat break up. You have no more complaint if anything goes after. Kim and her family lived in a refugee camp in malaysia until her parents secured entry to canada the start of a new life today shes one of the countrys most celebrated authors her 3 best selling novels have been translated into 25 languages. It must have been a clash of cultures when you came to canada what was your most difficult challenge we have arrived not from our home we arrive from a refitted camp so basically you we became subhuman you know we lived in places that were not places and under citizenship we were stateless right and so you we arrived here and we couldnt compare with anything else we compare with 0 rights or anything after 0 is great and the beauty was that we arrived in a small city where my impression was the whole city was there waiting for us someone picked me up and held me in their arms of his arms or her arms but everybody was being held and that was the 1st moment where we became canadian it was not 3 years later with the paperwork and all that we became canadian on that 1st moment because you phone while you fall in love with these people who didnt hesitate to pick up a dirty refugee and i mean dirty you know we had infection everywhere we had wise in our hair and and even today you know i wonder if i would pick up myself when i was 10 when i arrived here can trace family had been affluent and well educated her parents valued tradition as refugees they lost everything. Going to canada was a decline for your parents for your father was a philosopher provide. And both of your parents worked in factories in kenya yeah did save see theyre still the start of their new life in canada as i read in richmond as a loss because my parents could already speak french and english that they couldnt follow courses in have a salary from the government for learning a bill and what the hotel where we were we landed where we stay the director. Gave him a job to clean the stairs the the emergency stairs meaning he didnt meet anybody he created this job for my dad and i still remember my dad gathering all of us in the room and he said and he started a sentence by saying were small. The director he could have just given that money but he wanted to create a job so that that 1st job would lead to another job and also to give us back our dignity and so giving us a very difficult gesture and him here exactly how to give but with dignity you know it not only a means of living in terms of money but dignity and dignity is everything from their own wants and you you you have that back the you really consider as a full human person. You can do anything. So how can we complain. Kim and her 2 brothers didnt just have to learn english and french upon arriving in quebec i had to learn how to trust again. I didnt have a voice you know vietnam felt really into silence after the end of the war in 75 you could no longer speak freely or as much as possible to motz beat so that you dont make your the people around you Bad Information because we were all sourced to the mounds i mean. Jesters accents which were considered to be antirevolutionary are anti cultural as you know you know in a communist context and so as much as possible that you dont you know longer speak you no longer you try not to hear it try not to see and so thats how we lived at 10 years after the end of the war and before that because it was such a shy kid i didnt speak at all or very very little all i did was cry i was very good at crying canada and our specify quebec because we arrived here and go back and thats why friends is now my 2nd Mother Tongue i would say. Gave me a voice a voice that i didnt know that i had and that i was now looking for. With this voice came to become an author eventually her 1st book group was published in french in 2009 the novel is full of memories of her childhood in saigon of the city smells and food of being forced to flee and the refugee camp the language remains poetic even when dealing with despair. If a choreographer had been underneath the plastic sheet on a rainy day or night he would certainly have reproduced the same 25. 00 people shortened to all on their feet each holding a tin can to collect the water that dripped off the roof sometimes in torrents sometimes drop by drop if a musician had been there he would have heard the orchestration of all that striking the sides of the tunes if a filmmaker had been there he would have captured the beauty of the silent and spontaneous complicity between rich people but there was only us standing on the floor that was slowly sinking into the clay. Finally the family was to. Mid to immigrate to canada a new life between 2 cultures him to a 2nd book man was published in 2013 it tells the story of a woman from viet nam who meets her great love in canada similar to the author herself who has 2 children with her canadian husband next novel is also somewhat autobiographical published in 2016 its protagonist is a vietnamese woman living in exile in canada who gets relocated to hanoi for work. I have a chance to go back to work as a lawyer i was sent to vietnam on a project and that thats when i had the chance to meet vietnam then you know to learn to know about vietnam as an adult and more more than that not only as an adult but as a comedian but hung noise was not South Vietnam it was enemy aslund yes it was a different country. To me hanoi words totally unknown and i think you know i would have adopted at that myself better in germany then in hanoi simply because i thought i knew hanoi was germany i accept but i dont know anything or gonna learn the language im going to learn the culture was had i went in as of yet that means it was totally me stabilized because it was not the same vietnam that i had in mind but i have discovered you know. So many stories that all of us there were no winners and we were all victims of a war for from one side or the other and thats why today i would never call the north of vietnam as the enemy land we which are at victims you know of the same war standing on both sides of the fences but its the same its the same suffering it was the same thing. Mez it was the same was nobody won in a war. I dont think so. Millions died in that war which also drove over one and a half 1000000 people to flee their home country 60000 vietnamese went to canada in the 1970 s. Alone where they received a warm welcome. And when in 2015 the world was asked to grant asylum to syrians canada once again opened its doors the Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau even came to greet the 1st Syrian Refugees but there isnt a phobia in canada to him to any hopes her own story could help counter anti immigrant sentiment but when you came to canada you your received a warm welcome. What about todays canada its not recess you know when we left vietnam the International Community community was waiting for us. That everybody was opening their arms in you know taking us in today is not the same. Its not the same situation and thats why i just want to remind all of us that we have already been sold to numerous and so good we have this in that we are capable of this goodness we can be great which is forget sometimes. Canadas hospitality its breathtaking scenery can make us forget the darkest chapters of this countrys history its banning of the cultural practices and languages of its Indigenous Peoples the socalled 1st nations even in the 1990 s. It was still being relocated repressed and disenfranchised they continue to suffer the economic and psychological consequences to this day only now is the state taking responsibility for those terrible acts. We always forget that they were here before all of us but in books in images very often we have one. One portrait of the typical commune but today canada and specially canada set a new country. There so they have been many many layers of of migration of people coming in. So i think were malty color multicultural or multi you know the we are that kind of country we live together in order to live well together we need to know each other before we can love each other right so if we dont know the story of our 1st nations then we will never be able to connect and live together and saw their stories have to be told we as canadians need to know its our responsibility to know like a family we need to know our brothers and sisters and stories and lives and their love break ups so its all for so i think thought for a nation is is so important to have conversation and as you know as soon as we have the communication is broken and thats where misunderstandings start and war you know and hatred right so we need to have this conversation. A conciliatory attitude means that kim tweets influence extends far beyond the literary world and she doesnt shy away from to abuse one of her sons has autism the author says he has changed her perception and her writing. And i always think that im 10 years late because i arrived here at when i was 10 so im always running to catch up the 10 years that i have lost that im late on everybody else rationally and normal ok you know at the same pace than everybody but i dont know instinctively im always running and my son whos artistic cannot go with that pace he goes. At his own wisdom and he forces me to slow down like a desk you know like at his speed and so for him when he walks into our room at take him time to examine the room and because of that i also have to stop and examine the room dont understand why he prefers one room to the to the other is of the right is it the shape of the land is it the number of people is of the the texture of those the so far or you know i have to analyze all of the senses and because of him at the come since oriel i become aware of all the Little Details that i would have never seen if i was just me i would just go into the brewer and there there are a member me and would not have even seen that there was as of kim to return challenges into opportunities for optimism has helped to succeed and it seems both literary critics and the public are impressed in 2018 she was shortlisted for the alternative nobel literature prize. There are only a handful of canadian writers in the worldwide and swung world what with edward. Michael and that maybe you where where do you see yourself in canadian literature i dont know. I i still dont see myself as a writer because a writer has to be. Mr they they think more you know and i dont think so what i only enjoy what you know what i am doing. To me its such a privilege to sit down and find the right word that if i can spend the whole day just to try to find one word and that would be an accomplishment for me and so im not i dont know the writer has to be like this you know i dont know in my ever watch him to he isnt troubled by what others think of her she enjoys trying out new things shes been a lawyer and a restaurant and become a bestselling novelist shes even written a cookbook which she also presented in berlin with a cooking class. With you but this is great cuisine just rolls things flour. Well there was more than roasted flour there were vietnamese style pork meatballs. And the air was thick with the smell of spices roasted nuts and came to ace delicious homemade sources. She didnt just make it look easy it really was easy and the results were delicious kim 20 has received several awards for her cookbook which also contain stories from her family life in class 2 she showed how cooking and eating can bring people together there was chatter and laughter and occasionally explanations from chin to a good name a spilled also plays a large role in her novels were achieved. To seduce to comfort and to celebrate she says to vietnamese people eating is about much more than sustenance its an attitude to life as she learned in her Early Childhood in saigon. My cousins parents would base their choice of what to buy on the color of the fruit of the purview of a spice or simply according to the whim of the moment the food they brought home was always surrounded by a festive aura a sense of decadence and thrill they didnt fresh over the empty rice charlie kitchen or the palms who were supposed to learn by heart they just wanted us to stuff ourselves on the mangoes to bite into fruition make the juice for it boss spinning around and around like tops to the music of the dolls still be fantastic Michel Sardou the beatles or cat stevens. You write that you like a family or lie on foot to express your feelings what do you cook for friend who is really suffering and what do you call when youre happy oh i think they say. Its the fresh rolls because in vietnamese food is really. Particular for its. And romas where we eat a lot of fresh herbs just really yeah you dont cook before they just put on the table and for the fresh rolls you put the leaves in the roll and just leave you have maybe 6 or 7 kinds of different kinds in there so every bite is different the 1st the 1st by the 1st perfume perfume that you you have is at the level of the lips right and then when you chew you have a different cocktail and when you swallow you have a whole opening up and everybody is different because you can never have this the same intensity in each leaf and the same amount of leaves and all so each by is a new experience right at the end. I think its almost like a garden in your mouth so if you sat that will make you happy and if youre happy then you explore you float. Always in. Canadian food and have a similar effect not yes yes i know that you will laugh but its called but they should know what and the 3rd layer of limbs means being corn and mashed potatoes it seems very simple but its more comforting its something i hear a lot of over and over and its quite heavy because it was invented for the people who work on the railroad when you eat that you know yours you stay strong for a long time so i dont need that much strength from food so when i eat partition aura its always like a huge piece i can never stop. Came to me very much at home in canada but vietnam is also an integral part of her. If you ask me if i was a comedian all of the music i would say im both i dont have to choose in the same socalled you know 30 percent of either me 70 no im 100 percent on both especially because i would say ive even too much cheese and bacon now im big enough to sit on 2 chairs and not in the crack of the chairs you know and so i would say that i understand the immigrant. Poster position because i have been one but ive also become fully to me when you know i i dont know i consider myself a very often i forget that you can tell that i am not a white person of the. Readings of your books you speak publicly about your path. Asked about the experiences as a refugee does your success happy to raise awareness about a reality for you have a referee trees i hope i hope i have had the chance to be invited to many events where i speak and now and im always you know happy when theres one person in the room who would come up to me and say youve changed my view on on the roof you know on how we see were fijis and thats the whole purpose you know of yeah of me speaking because very you know when do you give a microphone to a refreshing never very rarely or when we talk about immigrants are refugees we talk as a about them as a group theres no story theres no name theres no age theres nothing right theres no history to it of that its like a big group and as a human person you know as our brain we cannot relate to a whole group we have to relate to one person at a time so i guess i am that person that you know who has the microphone and so i try to speak for all of us. I hope that the way you know the job fairly well. So yeah i tried to take responsibility basically of this privilege to have a chip view where i can speak about that experience her life insight on her flight from viet nam her marriage to a canadian came to his personal experience to serve as a basis for characters in all 3 of her novels can you imagine to write a novel that has no connection to your personal life. Right now i cant i have so much to say still about the people that ive met and really my only objective when i write is to share what i find beautiful and this humans be gentle around me and so i dont even have enough time to write about the things i know so. Maybe once the barrier i finish that than our will imagine you know science Science Fiction on some different planets but right now just the people around me are already so fascinating and amazing i dont need to go anywhere really and so maybe thats why its so close to me you change your profession so often the center any challenge you still want to achieve i hope i hope there are more out there and there are many things i havent done im so yes absolutely ive just last friday after is accepted. A mandate that was way beyond my you know abilities and it was outside of my comfort zone but i accepted it for that very reason that i will learn something so absolutely thats what should know i would love to be an astronaut. But i think im too old. Oh on model i think im too short ill never get to be a wall. Thank you very much it wasnt my bush i was a bit of it but. It seems unlikely that kims we will run out of material any time soon and through his sto