Thuận (Đoan Ánh Thuận) is a French writer and translator of Vietnamese origin. Most of her works were written in Vietnamese and translated into French. Her latest novel, ''B-52 or She Who Loved Tolstoy'' (2025), was written directly in French.

Biography

Born in Vietnam in 1967, Thuận obtained a scholarship after her baccalaureate to study Russian and English literature in

Pyatigorsk Pyatigorsk (; Circassian languages, Circassian: Псыхуабэ, ''Psıxwabæ'') is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Stavropol Krai, Russia, located on the Podkumok River, about from the town of Mineralnye Vody, which has an i ...

, Russia, where she stayed for five years. Arriving in France in 1991, she continued her literary studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. She is the twin sister of academic Đoan Cẩm Thi, professor of Vietnamese literature at

INALCO Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (; ), abbreviated as INALCO, is a French Grand Etablissement with a specializing in the teaching of languages and cultures from the world. Its coverage spans languages of Central Europ ...

, who has also translated her works into French on several occasions. She is married to Vietnamese artist

Trần Trọng Vũ Trần Trọng Vũ (born 1964 in Hanoi) is a Vietnamese painter. He is the youngest son of the poet Trần Dần Trần Dần (1926–1997) was a Vietnamese poet and novelist noted for his radical works. He is the father of the painter Tr ...

. Now based in Antony (

Hauts-de-Seine Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a department in the Île-de-France region of France. It covers Paris's western inner suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the east, Val-d'Oise to the north, Yvelines to the west and ...

), Thuận is the author of ten novels, seven of which have been translated into French and two into English. Her novel ''A Quiet April in Saigon'' was banned by Vietnamese censorship in 2015. She received the Vietnam Writers' Union Award in 2006 and the

Centre National du Livre The Centre national du livre (CNL) is a French établissement public à caractère administratif. The CNL is placed under the administrative supervision of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication (, ). Its vocation and mission is to s ...

's Creation Grant in 2013 and 2020. Her novel ''Chinatown'', translated into English by Nguyễn An Lý, was the recipient of an

English PEN Founded in 1921, English PEN is one of the world's first non-governmental organisations and among the first international bodies advocating for human rights. English PEN was the founding centre of PEN International, a worldwide writers' associa ...

Translates Award and winner of the

National Translation Award The National Translation Award is awarded annually by the American Literary Translators Association The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) is an organization in the United States dedicated to literary translation. ALTA promotes literar ...

in Prose 2023 in the United States. It was also a finalist for the

Republic of Consciousness Prize The Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses is an annual British literary prize founded by the author Neil Griffiths. It rewards fiction published by UK and Irish small presses, defined as those with fewer than five full-time employee ...

2023 and included in

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

's Best Books of 2022. Her novels are the subject of research in Vietnamese, French, and American universities for her innovative writing style, sometimes unsettling by its humor. She is also the translator of

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...

Patrick Modiano Jean Patrick Modiano (; born 30 July 1945), generally known as Patrick Modiano, is a French novelist and recipient of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is a noted writer of autofiction, the blend of autobiography and historical fiction. I ...

and

Michel Houellebecq Michel Houellebecq (; born Michel Thomas on 26 February 1956) is a French author of novels, poems, and essays, as well as an occasional actor, filmmaker, and singer. His first book was a biographical essay on the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. H ...

into Vietnamese.

Exile literature

Exile is the main theme in Thuận's writing. From one novel to the next, she draws the configuration of the world as it appears since the end of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, the fall of the

French colonial empire The French colonial empire () comprised the overseas Colony, colonies, protectorates, and League of Nations mandate, mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "Firs ...

, the disappearance of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and the rise of China. As their titles suggest, her novels are notebooks of wanderings – ''Chinatown'', ''Elevator in Saigon'', ''T Has Disappeared'', ''A Quiet April in Saigon'', ''Paris 11 August'', ''Letters to Mina'' – in which the reader is transported between Hanoi, Saigon, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Seoul, Kabul, Pyatigorsk, Odessa, Chechnya... Her characters usually try to flee Vietnam, their native land, at all costs and by all means.

''Chinatown''

An abandoned package is discovered in the

Paris Métro The Paris Métro (, , or , ), short for Métropolitain (), is a rapid transit system serving the Paris metropolitan area in France. A symbol of the city, it is known for its density within the capital's territorial limits, uniform architectur ...

: the subway workers suspect it’s a terrorist bomb. A Vietnamese woman sitting nearby, her son asleep on her shoulder, waits and begins to reflect on her life, from her constrained childhood in communist Hanoi, to a long period of study in Leningrad during the Gorbachev period, and finally to the Parisian suburbs where she now teaches English. Through everything runs her passion for Thuy, the father of her son, a writer who lives in Saigon’s Chinatown, and who, with the shadow of the

Sino-Vietnamese War The Sino-Vietnamese War (also known by other names) was a brief conflict that occurred in early 1979 between China and Vietnam. China launched an offensive ostensibly in response to Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978, whi ...

falling darkly between them, she has not seen for eleven years. Besides French, ''Chinatown'' was translated into English by Nguyễn An Lý and awarded the

in Prose 2023. In their statement, the judges noted: ''"Who knew reverie could be this fast-moving, this suspenseful? Below the surface, waiting, feeling the uneasy gaze of her fellow Parisians, our narrator travels back through her memories—of her son, of Hanoi, of his absent, longed-for father—and, in so doing, gifts us constraint’s solace: that memories might bring one back to a sense of self, against all the odds."''

''Elevator in Saigon''

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, including what was rumored to be the first elevator in a private home in the country, but days after moving in, 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 learns of an enigmatic figure, Paul Polotsky, from her mother’s notebook. Like an amateur sleuth, she trails Polotsky through the streets of Paris. Meanwhile, she tries to find clues about her mother’s past, which zigzags through Hanoi, Saigon, Paris, Pyongyang, and Seoul. Again brought into English by Nguyễn An Lý, ''Elevator in Saigon'' was also translated into French, Swedish, and Norwegian.

Publications

Novels written in Vietnamese

* ''Made in Vietnam'', published by Văn Mới, California, 2002 * ''Chinatown'', Đà Nẵng, Vietnam, 2005 * ''Paris 11 tháng 8'', Nhã Nam, 2005 * ''T mất tích'', Nhã Nam, 2007 * ''Vân Vy'', Nhã Nam, 2008 * ''Thang máy Sài Gòn'', Nhã Nam, 2013 * ''Chỉ còn 4 ngày là hết tháng 4'', Nhã Nam, 2016 * ''Thư gửi Mina'', Phanbook, 2019 * ''Sậy'', Phanbook, 2023.

Novel written in French

*''B-52 ou celle qui aimait Tolstoï'', published by

Actes Sud Actes Sud is a French publishing house based in Arles. It was founded in 1978 by author Hubert Nyssen. By 2013, the company, then headed by Nyssen's daughter, Françoise Nyssen, had an annual turnover of 60 million euros and 60 staff members. ...

, France, 2025.