Date of release: 2021-09-15
Pages: 259
Sold to: Denmark: Turbine, Finland: Förlaget (Swedish), Teos (Finnish), Germany: Residenz Verlag, Norway: Oktober, UK & Commonwealth: Lolli Editions, Vietnam: Bebooks
Quynh Tran
Skugga och svalka /Shade and Breeze
This is the story of Má and Hieu.
Má dreams about wealth and grandeur, Hieu dreams about the pretty girls. Then there is also the second son, the younger brother, always in the periphery, always an observer. He gradually disappears into his schoolwork, mesmerised by his own astonishing intelligence.
The three of them form a solitary world in the small Ostrobothnian town. Má and Hieu, constantly on a collision course with each other and the community's suffocating social codes. They live among people who want to talk openly about everything, who don't understand the necessity of focus and shade.
Shade and Breeze is Quynh's Tran's evocative and poignant debut novel - a story about love, obsession and the meaning of family.
A magic voice. Working with the coming-of-age in a smalltown narrative Quynh Tran creates a world completely of its own kind, a story of belonging and estrangement, and of the refugee experience. In a sensual, dreamy prose, still so very real, with an authority reminiscent of Ocean Vuongs On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Quynh Tran has written a first novel that shines like a precious gem.
Monika Fagerholm, Author of THE AMERICAN GIRL and WHO KILLED BAMBI
WINNER OF SVENSKA YLE'S LITERATURE PRIZE 2021
WINNER OF THE RUNEBERG PRIZE 2022
WINNER OF BORÅS TIDNING'S DEBUTANT PRIZE 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE KATAPULT PRIZE 2022
Quynh Tran
Quynh Tran was born in 1989 and grew up in Jakobstad in Finnish Ostrobothnia. He now resides in Malmö where he works as a psychologist.
Tran is a graduate of the acclaimed Biskops Arnö Writing School. His literary debut Shade and Breeze was recently awarded Svenska Yle’s Literature Prize and is currently shortlisted for the prestigious Runeberg Prize, the Katapult Prize for Best Debut and Borås Tidning’s Debutant Prize.