She has been hailed by many as a very talented writer, and her first novel “Certainty” won a slew of awards and was translated into several languages. Madeleine Thien is back with “Dogs at the Perimeter,” which contrasts present-day Canada with the history of Cambodia. All this is set against a missing-person mystery that chronicles how deeply lives can be intertwined. WatchMojo was lucky enough to speak with Thien about her second book.
WatchMojo - Tell us about your book, “Dogs at the Perimeter.”
Madeleine Thien - My novel, Dogs at the Perimeter, is about a young woman who, as a child, lived through the Cambodian Civil War and a year of the Khmer Rouge genocide. Separated from her family, she escapes to Malaysia and eventually Canada, where she is adopted by a woman who studies the history of science. The child, renamed Janie, becomes a scientist herself: an electrophysiologist. She works alongside a neurologist named Hiroji Matsui until the day of his sudden disappearance in November, 2005. And so the novel begins.
WM - Where did the inspiration for this book come from?
MT - I had been thinking about Cambodia for many years, about the tragedy that happened there, about the lives lost and the ones re-made, about all the worlds that people carry within themselves. What happens when the pieces of a person’s life cannot fit together? What happens when someone reinvents themselves in a new world, a place that has no consciousness of the world this person has lost?
WM - The book also focuses on Cambodia in the 1970s. What kind of research did you undertake to ensure realism?
MT - Over five years, I spent many months in Cambodia, returning numerous times, sometimes for as long as 5 months, sometimes for a short as four weeks. I lived mostly in Phnom Penh and in the south, in a town called Kampot. In Phnom Penh, I was fortunate to be able to access papers, photographs, films and books at the National Archives, the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-CAM) and the Bophana Centre. I spoke to many people from all walks of life. I also had the chance to spend time with a group of journalists and photographers who had covered the Cambodian Civil War from 1975-1979, and were gathering in Phnom Penh for their first reunion in 30 years. I listened.
WM - Why did you choose the backdrops of Cambodia and Montreal?
MT - They are not backdrops so much as the two centers of the novel, the two homes of Janie, the two places in which she has lived the separate parts of her life. There is a strong and vibrant Cambodian community in Montreal. Just this past weekend, there was an extraordinary colloquium organized by the Cambodian group of the Community-University Research Alliance (CURA). They are part of project called Histoires de vie Montréal, which collects the oral histories of survivors of war and genocide. More information about their groundbreaking work can be found here and here.
WM - Tell us about your experience writing this book: did you find it more difficult than your previous work?
MT - This is the most challenging book I have ever written, and it is also the book that made me confront deeply why I write fiction and why I believe that literature matters. I travel a great deal, and have spent time in many places, but Cambodia is the most complex country I have ever encountered. The country has a incredibly rich culture and a deeply complicated history. It has stories that, I believe, should be in the human consciousness.
MADELEINE THIEN is the author of two previous books of fiction, Simple Recipes, a collection of stories, and Certainty, a novel. Her fiction and essays have appeared in Granta, The Walrus, Five Dials, Brick, and the Asia Literary Review, and her work has been translated into more than sixteen languages. In 2010, she received the Ovid Festival Prize, awarded each year to an international writer of promise. She lives in Montreal.
Digg this Blog
Share on Facebook
WatchMojo on Twitter
WatchMojo on YouTube
Add to Favorites
WatchMojo Newsletter
