Anam (novel)
{{Short description|2023 novel by Australian author André Dao}}
{{Use Australian English|date= March 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox book |
| name = Anam
| title_orig =
| translator =
| image =
| caption =
| author = André Dao
| cover_artist =
| country = Australia
| language = English
| series =
| genre = Literary novel
| publisher = Hamish Hamilton
| release_date = May 2023
| media_type = Print
| pages = 368 pp.
| isbn = 9781761046940
| preceded_by =
| followed_by =
| awards = 2024 Prime Minister's Literary Awards for Fiction, winner
}}
Anam is a 2023 debut novel by the Australian author André Dao.{{cite web|title= Anam by André Dao|publisher= National Library of Australia|url= https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/10001340 |access-date= 22 March 2025}}
It was the winner of the 2024 Prime Minister's Literary Awards for Fiction.{{Cite news |last=Burke |first=Kelly |date=2024-09-12 |title=Prime Minister's Literary awards 2024: Andre Dao wins $80,000 for debut novel Anam |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/sep/12/prime-ministers-literary-awards-2024-andre-dao-wins-80000-for-debut-novel-anam |access-date=22 March 2025 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}
Synopsis
The novel is based on the life of the author's grandfather who was imprisoned in Vietnam for 10 years by the Communist regime for being a Catholic intellectual. While writing his grandfather's story Dao is also studying in Cambridge U.K. for a master's degree in law and living with his wife and daughter.
The novel covers a time period from the 1930s to the present day, and from Vietnam, to England and Australia.
Critical reception
Scott McCulloch, writing for Australian Book Review, notes that the novel "deals in the inconsistencies of memory and perception" which goes on "to create a sprawling meditation on how remembrance is carried and lived intergenerationally, between countries and displacements, between the living and the dead." He concluded: "Dao collates threads and traces that comprise, as in nature, a laboratory of life. His treatment of place fields an elliptical and coherent storytelling, entangled as such to explore the fictional nature of belonging."{{cite web|title="Beyond before: André Dao's amorphous spaces by Scott McCulloch" |publisher= Australian Book Review, July 2023|url=https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2023/july-2023-no-455/991-july-2023-no-455/10320-scott-mcculloch-reviews-anam-by-andre-dao|access-date= 22 March 2025}}
In The Guardian Joseph Cummins called the novel "a deeply personal meditation on family memory", and while "it takes the reader on a wild and at times bewildering ride, it is equally a warm, tender book about family."{{cite web|title="Anam by André Dao review – decades-spanning family epic examines the difficulties of memory" |publisher= The Guardian, 19 May 2023|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/19/anam-by-andre-dao-review-decades-spanning-family-epic-probes-the-difficulties-of-memory|access-date= 22 March 2025}}
See also
Notes
- Dedication: For Ong Ba Noi
Awards
- 2024 Prime Minister's Literary Awards for Fiction, winner
- 2024 Miles Franklin Award, shortlisted{{Cite news |last=Galvin |first=Nick |date=2024-07-02 |title=First timers and indie publishers dominate Miles Franklin shortlist |language=en-GB |work=The Age|url=https://www.theage.com.au/culture/books/first-timers-and-indie-publishers-dominate-miles-franklin-shortlist-20240701-p5jq37.html |access-date=22 March 2025 }}
- 2024 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, winner
References
{{reflist}}
{{Prime Minister's Literary Award – Fiction}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anam}}