Water: A Chronicle

Nguyễn Ngọc Tư

Illustrated by Nguyễn Thanh Vũ

Translated by Nguyễn An Lý

Deborah Smith (editor)

Major Books

Paperback

160pp

ISBN: 9781917233002

Fiction

Publication date: 30 October 2024

Rights: WorldWorld English

£11.99

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Winner of the PEN Translates Award 2024

At the heart of this watery ‘chronicle’ is a dual mystery: a holy man on an island empire, and a desperate mother seeking his heart to cure her child. The mosaic novel of nine stories circles this enigma like the river’s currents, carrying with it fragments of myth and life from the great river.

A trans woman who wants to be ‘whole’, a shadow bride who wants to be fleshed, a mad woman with a colicky infant, a words-eating woman shielding her child from a fly apocalypse… The ghosts and ghouls that reflect upon the water surface may well be the everyday reality of river life, or simply the universal haunting of womanhood.