 Nguyen Phan Que Mai with her book 'The Mountains Sing'. (Photo courtesy of Mai's Facebook) |
The book is set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and tells an enveloping tale of the Tran family as seen through the eyes of matriarch Tran Dieu Lan and her granddaughter, Huong. As Huong comes of age, Lan teaches her what it takes to survive and live with compassion.
Scottish-German novelist Alexander Starritt's 'We Germans' claimed the top prize in the fiction category.
As the runner-up, Mai will receive $5,000. Her book will be honored at a gala in November in Dayton, Ohio, alongside other finalists this year and last year.
Mai, who has a PhD in creative writing from Lancaster University in the U.K., is the author of eight books in Vietnamese covering the gamut from poetry to non-fiction, and she has been translated and published in more than 15 countries.
The Mountains Sing, also her first English work, also won a Lannan Literary Awards Fellowship for contribution to peace and reconciliation and the BookBrowse Best Debut Award for 2020.
The Dayton Literary Peace Prize aims to celebrate the power of literature in promoting peace, social justice and global understanding.