Toby Martin

But we have actually, I mean, mostly thanks to Lan's creativity, we've found a way to kind of have a language that combines both of them.

Well, I mean, yeah, hearing Vietnamese spoken, I mean, there is a

when I hear it, it's always struck by the incredible variety of, of vowel sounds.

And yeah, when, when you say written on the page, you know, all the little, all the kind of little accents around the vowels, I can almost, when I say that, I can almost sort of hear the, the, the incredible sort of diphthongs and like, and vowel sounds that Vietnamese speakers make.

I don't, I don't speak or read Vietnamese, but I have sung, attempted to sing a few songs in Vietnamese and,

because pitch is very important in Vietnamese.

So the ways in which you pitch the word can change the meaning.

And so that has really interesting ramifications when you sing it.

And one of the things I love about Vietnamese music is the incredible pitch range that Vietnamese music uses.

It's quite incredible hearing her say that the book is to her grandmother who she didn't know.

I mean, because reading the book, you get such a strong sense

such an authentic sense of a relationship between a granddaughter and a grandmother.

And you just kind of, you do that thing where you just assume this is what the author is basing it on.

So that's very interesting to hear that.

The character of the grandmother, Julan, in the book is, I guess she is the storyteller.

I mean, the book has a very ingenious structure where everything is seen through the eyes of Huang, who's a teenager for most of the book.

But the book is told through stories that come to her.

And

One of the main storytellers is her grandmother and her grandmother tells her the story of being in Vietnam in the 1950s and earlier and the Viet Minh coming to power and the consequences for her family.

So it's seen through the eyes of the granddaughter listening to the grandmother's stories.