Kim Thúy (Saigon, 1968) left Vietnam with 10 years in a refugee barge. Today she lives in Canada and after being a seamstress, interpreter, lawyer, restaurateur and gastronomic critic, she is now a successful writer with her books published in 39 countries including Spain, where she publishes Peripheral .

Did you really leave Vietnam as a girl on a patera? Yes. We left in 1975, after the war. We think that after the war peace would come, but what came was a period of immense chaos. Everything was being reorganized, the political regime changed ... And those who had lost the war were persecuted. We, my family, could not stay in Vietnam, it was absolutely impossible. So we got on a barge full of immigrants and arrived by chance in Malaysia. We didn't even know that that was Malaysia. We just saw a beach and it turned out to be Malaysia. And there they put us in a refugee camp for four months. How was your stay in that refugee camp? Horrible, really. In such a place you lose your dignity, you lose your identity. Being in a refugee camp is like being in no man's land. Your culture becomes nothing, you lose everything you have. When they give you food, you say thank you. And when you have to bend down to take some food from the ground, a little of you dies, you lose a little of your dignity. And how did you and your family end up in Canada? By chance. When we were in the refugee camp in Malaysia, a Canadian delegation came. My father spoke French and English, so he volunteered as an interpreter. Canadians said they could take someone with them and that at the end of the day they would announce who. And they decided to take the interpreter and his family. That's how we ended up in Canada. We wanted in principle to go to France or the United States because Vietnam had a relationship with those countries. But we ended up in Canada. I imagine it must have been very hard: to leave behind everything they had and start a new life in an unknown country ... Yes, it was difficult. But when you don't have another option, don't even think about it. In Vietnam at that time if a boy was not admitted to college at the age of 18, he was sent to the battlefield of Cambodia or to the border with China. And the entrance into the university was not based on academic merits but on family history. And my family was in the wrong place. I had a 17-year-old uncle and two brothers, and we knew that if we stayed in Vietnam they would die. That's why we left. Leaving we also knew that we were playing our lives. But since we also played it by staying in Vietnam, we really didn't have to make any choice, staying or leaving was the same. And we left. How was your arrival in Canada? Amazing. The Canadians welcomed us and gave us back their dignity and humanity. And from there, everything was easy. Our dreams came true before we could even dream them. We arrived with nothing. The Canadian Government first hosted us at a hotel and there they gave us the opportunity to be reborn. The hotel manager gave my father his first job to clean the stairs. Of course they didn't need me to do that, they already had someone to clean them. But, instead of giving us money, with great sensitivity and kindness they preferred to give my father that job and that he would recover his dignity. And that work led to another and then to another, because what my father needed was something to start from. That was the beginning of our life in Canada. And what do you feel when you see what happens today with immigrants in the United States and in many countries in Europe? I do not understand. Look: an athlete is someone who runs in the morning in the rain, in the cold, to train and thus become stronger, faster. We admire that athlete and if he wins we hang a medal. An immigrant is someone who does exactly the same thing: someone who goes through gigantic challenges and manages to overcome them. An immigrant is someone who survives a journey on a barge where he can die drowned, who has to walk kilometers and kilometers to reach a site. And when he arrives at that site he encounters a wall, he can be arrested and expelled, and still they move on. If I were responsible for a country I would like to have immigrants who have survived unspeakable obstacles and challenges, because these people are super athletes, they are super men and super women both physically and mentally, people who don't give up. Are you a super woman? ? I am what I am today thanks to Canada. What I can tell you is that I was a very sick girl. He was allergic to everything: fish, seafood, eggs, milk ... Everything. I was always sick, and I passed out all the time, every two times three. And when I emigrated, when I lost everything, I became strong. There was no other: either you became strong or died. Now I live in Canada, a country where we often arrive at 28 degrees below zero, and I rarely get sick. That's why I say that immigrants become super human beings: your body is reprogrammed, you don't know how but it does. Have you returned to Vietnam? Yes. The first time I returned was when I was a lawyer, I went there for two weeks to work. And I was reunited with my culture. The idea of ​​Vietnam that I had was what my parents had told me. But when I came back I could appreciate Vietnam without the pain and anger they had, I saw Vietnam with a clean look, without the weight of history. And I fell in love with Vietnam. Also, when you have another culture you can compare. And when you compare you appreciate each other's beauty even more. Because each country has its own way of looking. It is the case of that fish that I do not know what it is called in Spanish but that in English is called goldfish , that the French call poisson rouge and that the Vietnamese call Chinese fish. The English call it goldfish ( goldfish ) because if you look at it from the tail to the head it is golden. The French call it poisson rouge because if you look at it from the head towards the tail it is red. It is the same fish always, but as you look you see it in one color or another. You have been a seamstress, interpreter, lawyer, owner of a restaurant, gastronomic criticism ... How did you start writing? Well .... I am one who sleeps anywhere, who sleeps in the corners. And in Canada, the red traffic lights last a long time, several minutes. I fell asleep at the wheel of the car while the traffic light was red. I am able to fall asleep in two seconds, and at that time I was very tired because I had the restaurant. So every time I caught a red light I slept. And it's dangerous, I could make a mistake on the pedal, step on the gas or lift my foot on the brake and hit the car in front of me. In fact, I had several accidents. I decided to write to avoid falling asleep at the traffic lights. At first he made lists: lists of the things he had to buy, lists of countries, lists of books he had read, lists of ingredients ... Lists of anything. And when I couldn't think of any more lists I started writing notes of the things that crossed my mind. And, without me noticing, those notes became a book, my first book. So you can say that I started writing to avoid having traffic accidents. The protagonists of his books are always women, Asian women who emigrate and have to start from scratch in a new place ... Yes. Maybe because it's a story I know and it's easy for me to tell. It is not something I have to do a lot of research because it is something that I have lived myself. Also, I didn't start writing thinking about making a book. I simply wrote for myself, for fun. If it became a book, it was because a friend took what I had written and took it to an editor. It was not me who put the manuscript in an envelope and sent it to an editor, no. He did a friend. And the editor liked it, published it and then other countries bought the rights: first ten countries, then 20 countries ... Now we are going through 39 countries. Once again, I was lucky, but why women? Well, men are the ones who have traditionally always gone to war, who are supposed to do important things. And then there are the women, those who stay and have to continue fighting daily, getting up every morning so that the country continues to function, sometimes after losing a husband or brother. And they never talk about them, about those women who take care of their families and keep them together, who clean, who cook ... Nobody applauds those gestures, nobody applauds a mother for being a mother. Actually I did not intend to write about women. But the stories of those women kept on hovering over and over again. In fact, in my second book I intended to talk about men. But again the women sneaked into it. But I don't look for them, they are the ones who look for me. And I love them, because women are generally more complicated than men and, therefore, more interesting. Men have been talking about men for a long time. Also, talking about women is never just talking about women, because women are part of society. The wonderful thing is that men and women are different and see things in different ways. I measure a meter and a half and see things very differently from someone who is tall. In fact, every time I wear heels I see things differently. I have always been interested in the different ways of looking. In your books time flows in a different way, in a different way .... It is that time is not really important. I am now sitting here with you and I don't know what time it is, nor do I care. What matters is that we are here, talking. Do you know that there are no verb tenses in Vietnamese? All verbs are used in infinitive, and simply add a particle that indicates that you are referring to 'yesterday' for example. In Vietnamese there are no conditionals, so they can't say things like "if I had ...". And of course, in Vietnamese there are no things like the previous future, something wonderful that shows how sophisticated our brain can be. I always think in the present. In fact, when I speak French I start using past verbs and I always end up speaking in the present. I don't know how to be in the past, and I don't know how to go to the future either. If something has happened in the past and you still remember it, it is present. And if it is something future and you are already talking about it, it means that it is also present.What is the secret of its success? No idea. If there were a secret recipe, publishers would only publish best-sellers. What catches my attention is how my books are received very differently depending on the country. The French, for example, say that what they value most about them is their structure. In Sweden they are interested in immigration. In Spain, the first time I came here, in all interviews I was always asked about women. In Quebec they like my books that I speak of Quebec in them and I always portray it as a wonderful place. Being a Vietnamese immigrant, being 'different', has it been an obstacle for you in Canada? No. Everything is easy in Canada, a country that encourages you to be different. In fact, I think that being different, calling me Kim Thúy, has helped me to open my career as a writer. If I had a 'normal' name, maybe I wouldn't have even called myself an editor, if Davies had called me and outside of Ohio, we wouldn't be talking now. Being different has always been a point in my favor. And, on the other hand, in Canada they have never made me feel someone different. I often forget that I have Asian features. If I meet someone I don't know, I can tell you, for example, that I wear a light blue coat, but I can't think of telling you that I have Asian features simply because I forget it. And if I forget it is because I have never felt discriminated against because of my appearance. Do you know what I say? Canada, my country, is a great country, it really is. Can you believe for example that the governor general of Canada, the head of state, has invited me to state visits as a representative of Canada? How many countries do you think would choose a refugee to officially represent them? I am proud of Canada, of my Canada. Canada hugged me as soon as I arrived, and when someone hugs you like that you are not able to say anything, you can only fall in love.

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