Join us for an exciting evening to discuss translated literature. Whether you're a fan of literary fiction or just looking to try something new, this book club hopes to achieve just that. In October, we will be looking at Elevator in Sài Gòn by Thuận, translated from the Vietnamese by Nguyễn An Lý.

Date:
Tuesday 29th October

Venue:
Max Minerva's, 47 Henleaze Road, BS9 4JU

Time:
Doors at 18:30. Discussion at 19:00. Finish at 19:45.

Tickets:
Attendance for the book club is free, but if you could register your place through the website, it helps us to gauge numbers. 

If you would like to buy a copy of the book, you can order it through us and show up on the night. 

ABOUT Elevator in Sài Gòn

A suspenseful novel that is part detective story, historical romance, postcolonial ghost story and a biting satire of life in a communist state.

A Vietnamese woman living in Paris travels back to Sài Gòn for her estranged mother’s funeral. Her brother had recently built a new house and staged a grotesquely lavish ceremony for their mother to inaugurate what was rumoured to be the first elevator in a private home in the country. But shortly after the ceremony, in the middle of the night, their mother dies after mysteriously falling down the elevator shaft. Following the funeral, the daughter becomes increasingly fascinated with her family’s history, and begins to investigate and track an enigmatic figure, Paul Polotsky, who emerges from her mother’s notebook.

Like an amateur sleuth, she trails Polotsky through the streets of Paris, sneaking behind him as he goes about his usual routines. Meanwhile, she researches her mother’s past – zigzagging across France and Vietnam – trying to find clues to the spiralling, deepening questions her mother left behind unanswered – and perhaps unanswerable.

ABOUT TILTED AXIS PRESS

Tilted Axis Press is a non-profit British publishing house specializing in the publication of contemporary Asian literature. Founded by Deborah Smith in 2015 following the success of her translation of Han Kang's The Vegetarian, the organization has gone on to publish 26 books and several chapbooks.

https://www.tiltedaxispress.com/