The Crystal Messenger

By Pham Thi Hoai, Ton-That Quynh Du (translator),

Book cover of The Crystal Messenger

Book description

This award winning book has been described as the 'renaissance of Vietnamese literature'. Written by a young woman in her twenties at the end of an era when Vietnam closed itself off from the world, it is widely regarded as one of the most important works of fiction ever to…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Crystal Messenger as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The Crystal Messenger is a delicate melancholy tale about a girl who observes from her window the comings and goings of her family and the community around her.

Her sister is the local beauty who is wooed by many but cannot find the poet that she truly loves and she is courted by a dwarf who is a member of the communist party. The prose of this novella is like candy floss, it can melt on your tongue and I aspire to use language this way.

From Hoa's list on slippaging between worlds.

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