Cecile Pin - Wandering Souls

WANDERING SOULS

Cecile Pin

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

HarperCollins Publishers

Macken House

39/40 Mayor Street Upper

Dublin 1

D01 C9W8

Ireland

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2023

Copyright Cecile Pin 2023

Cover illustration Xuan Loc Xuan

Cover design by Emma Pidsley

Cecile Pin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Margaret Thatcher letter Crown Copyright, 1979

To view this licence, visit https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008528775

Ebook Edition March 2023 ISBN: 9780008528799

Version: 2023-01-09

A debut in name only, Wandering Souls is an astute and sure-footed excavation of family, selfhood and loss in the shadow of colonial violence. It is also a deeply humane and genre-defying work of love and uncompromising hope through a long-overdue portrayal of Vietnamese life in the UK. A mighty achievement

The humanity in this novel pulses with tenderness and honesty, and blooms from the page like it does in the hearts of these characters. Cecile Pin has delivered a profoundly unforgettable tale

How do you carry your ghosts across an ocean? Wandering Souls is a novel about survival and loss and the ways they cannot always be untangled. Pin delicately handles the story of lives built despite the greatest of wounds

An intimate story, a political argument and a reflection on grief and inherited trauma. Wandering Souls is elegant, considered and moving with unusual but perfect form

An affecting and beautiful novel that I will never forget. Pin has crafted a tender and heart-breaking story of a familys journey from Vietnam to the UK, demonstrating the power of human resilience and hope despite losing everything. A must read

A beautiful meditation on the ties that bind us and the circumstances that separate us. Pin writes of the consequences of war and subsequent displacement with insight and compassion. May this pave the way for more stories that not only open our eyes to the lives of the Vietnamese diaspora but will also enrich our lives in the way Wandering Souls does

This deeply affecting novel charts one familys displacement, estrangement and return: loss passed on like an inheritance to successive generations I am full of admiration

Haunting, gut-wrenching A defiant statement about migration, prejudice and the human spirit for freedom and independence Its a brave, vivid, investigative debut that sends shivers up the spine

Measured, multilayered and beautiful. A novel I will remember, and recommend

Wandering Souls is deeply moving and deeply generous I cried reading it

Meticulously researched and beautifully imagined, Wandering Souls is a deeply affecting debut, a restless inquiry into the nature of loss, kinship and survival

Clear-hearted and moving, Wandering Souls tells one of the most important stories of our times, and you can feel, as you read, all it has taken Pin to write it

With language at once both concise and gorgeous, Pin opens a window into questions of duty, identity and love. Here migration is less a desire for survival than a journey into the thundering heart of family itself, where connection and understanding are hard-won and ultimately redemptive

A haunting exploration of love and leaving, told with a quiet longing that grabs you and doesnt let go. Wandering Souls asks what it takes not only to survive unimaginable loss, but to live through it and thrive. Exceptional

The novel asks: What does remembrance require? What are the costs of forgetting? And is there such a thing as moving on? Cecile Pin presents no easy answers. Instead, she has created a form to contain all of the contradiction, heartbreak, hope and tender humanity

Wandering Souls is a poetic, heartbreaking and ultimately triumphant celebration of the human spirit. Casting well-known history in new light, Pin offers a capacious rendering of the love, loss and hope of migration. Stunning and unforgettable

Contents

There are the goodbyes and then the fishing out of the bodies everything in between is speculation.

In the years to come, Thi Anh would let the harrowing memories of the boat and the camp trickle out of her until they were nothing but a whisper. But she would hold on to that last evening with all her might, from the smell of the steaming rice in the kitchen to the touch of her mothers skin as she embraced her for the last time.

Her mother, she would remember, preparing her daughters favourite dish, caramelised braised pork and eggs, while humming Tous Les Garons et Les Filles by Franoise Hardy. The French had left Vietnam twenty-five years prior, but their music still lingered, the y-y melodies filling the homes of the village of Vung Tham.

Anh was packing her rucksack in the bedroom next door, debating what to take and what to leave behind. Pack lightly, her father had told her. There wont be much room on the boat. She held her school uniform to her chest, pleated skirt and white shirt whose sleeves were too short for her sixteen-year-old arms, and placed it in her bag.

Her brothers Thanh and Minh were doing the same in the bedroom across from hers, their belongings scattered over the tiled floor, and she could hear them arguing. They had to share a rucksack between them, and Thanh maintained that because his clothes were slightly smaller, as he was ten and Minh was thirteen, Minh should pack fewer items than him. Your clothes take up too much space. Its only fair if I pack more than you. Their mother went to the room to investigate the noise, the smell of the caramelised pork following her. As Thanh began to explain the problem to her, his voice faded, her exasperated face quieting his trivial concern. Sorry, he muttered, as Minh looked at him with a triumphant smile. It doesnt matter.

Through her open door Anh saw their younger brother Dao watching the quarrel unfold from the edge of his futon. He fiddled with his blanket anxiously, his blue T-shirt too big for him, a hand-me-down from Thanh. He didnt like his brothers arguing, Anh knew, anxious over having to pick a side and vexing one or the other. Out of all her siblings, Anh worried about Dao the most. She worried about life for him in America, that his shyness would make it hard for him to make friends once there. She had spent the past few months trying to break open his shell, encouraging him to play nh bi or nh o with the other children of the village by the banyan tree. No, please, he would say, half hiding behind her. Id rather stay with you. Their mum pulled him up from his bed, his hands outstretched and holding on to hers. Come on, Dao, she said as she picked him up. Your brothers need to finish packing. Together they left the brothers bedroom and as they passed Anh, Mum asked, Are you done? I could use your help with dinner.