Kim Thúy is an award winning Canadian writer. At the beginning of the symposium, she explains to us that she travels frequently and she recently flew in from Sweden. Kim talks a bit about her former restaurant career, which leads her to question herself whether she is invited to events for her food or her books. The main story begins when she talks about her childhood in Vietnam. Her country was at war, north against south. The north was communists and the south was being supported by Americans. After the north won, they invaded the south and made it communist. Kim and her family are from the south, they lost all their rights after the government came in. Since they lived in a five floor house, half of it was given to the government to be used as a police station. The family was guarded and each member was checked when entering or exiting the house. They had food limits, such as 30 grains of salt per day. They would be able to buy meat and rice from the black market. A lady would strap food underneath her clothes and bring it in, carve it and sell it to Kim's family. Books were considered treasures to them; they didn't want the government to take their books away, so they burned them. Eventually, she fled the country with her family. They took a boat to Malaysia; some boats didn't make the trip, some got lost or made their way back to Vietnam, only to be prisoned. She explained how she had many allergies but her body adapted to survive after the four day boat trip. She arrived to Canada and was 10 years late on her education. She learned the language by studying the free advertisements they received at home. In 1982, she bought her first book, with the money she made by sowing zippers Her uncle explained her every single detail and it became her favorite book, she learned it all by heart. In college, she studied science and in University, she studied translation. Unfortunately, she was failing Translation and was too embarrassed to tell her mother. Although she did end up getting her degree, going to law school and later got recruited. This led her on a business trip, travelling to Vietnam and finding her husband. They settled in Thailand for a while with their two children. They moved to Canada and Kim opened a restaurant. On her drives homes she would be so tired that she would fall asleep at