Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Description

By Madeleine Thien

In Vancouver, ten-year-old Marie loses her father twice: once when he leaves the marriage, and again when he takes his own life. Years later she sets out to understand why, helped by Ai-Ming, a young woman who arrives from China after the crackdown in Tiananmen Square.

Their search reaches back to Marie’s father Kai, a pianist, to Ai-Ming’s father Sparrow, a composer, and to the violin prodigy Zhuli: three musicians at the Shanghai Conservatory whose art becomes impossible to practise during the Cultural Revolution. A novel about music, survival, and what one generation manages to pass on to the next.

First published 2016