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.

Nguyen Phan Que Mai with her book 'The Mountains Sing'.

As Huong comes of age, Lan teaches her what it takes to survive and live with compassion.

"The Mountains Sing is my yearning for peace, for human compassion, for forgiveness, for hope, and for humans to love humans more," Mai is quoted as saying in the contest website.

"I echo my call for peace in the form of this novel, through the words of my character Huong: 'Somehow I was sure that if people were willing to read each other, and see the light of other cultures, there would be no war on earth.'"

Her book beat off several other strong contenders, including Louise Erdrich’s ‘Night Watchman,’ winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and Douglas Stuart’s 'Shuggie Bain,' the 2021 Booker Prize winner for fiction.

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.

Additional Vietnamese female officer assigned to UN peacekeeping mission

The Ministry of National Defence (MOD) held a ceremony in Hanoi on August 17 to hand over the State President’s decision on assigning Lieut. Col. Vu Thi Kim Oanh to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.

Engagement in UN peacekeeping operations raises Vietnam’s prestige

Vietnam’s engagement in UN peacekeeping operations over the past seven years has helped raise the country’s prestige and position in the world and win praise from the UN, international friends and local people, according to Major General Hoang Kim Phung, Director of the Vietnam Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

Peaceful beauty of Chuon lagoon

Many visitors to the ancient city of Hue have said that without their experiences in Chuon Lagoon (also known as Cau Hai lagoon), they feel that they have not truly been in Hue.

Slow, peaceful pace of life in Hoi An

Hoi An Town charms tourists with its ancient, delicate beauty and tranquil atmosphere, hard to come by elsewhere.

Source: VnExpress