Madeleine Thien

Madeleine Thien is a Canadian short story writer and novelist.

Quotes

• My mother used to say that my tones are all crooked: it’s like hearing a song sung out of tune.
  • On her limited Cantonese skills in “Madeleine Thien: ‘In China, you learn a lot from what people don’t tell you’” in The Guardian (2016 Oct 8)

• It’s one of those places you can never quite see enough of it, it’s vast. For the Chinese it’s very odd for people to travel alone so I often get picked up by families and couples. You learn a lot from what people don’t tell you.
  • On her travels in China in “Madeleine Thien: ‘In China, you learn a lot from what people don’t tell you’” in The Guardian (2016 Oct 8)

• …Language is fragile. Words can erase and distort so many things. Justice, reason, democracy, freedom, goodness, truth—we have used these words in the service of widely different intentions. We have used them in humane ways and in deeply violent ways…
  • On her book Dogs At the Perimeter in “Words Can Erase and Distort: An Interview with Madeleine Thien” in LitHub (2017 May 26)

• …There are numerous sensitive subjects in China, and writers there have to make decisions about how they’re going to create in these conditions. The resulting literature is fascinating, full of docu-fiction, allegory, and everything in-between…
  • On the restrictions imposed on Chinese in “Words Can Erase and Distort: An Interview with Madeleine Thien” in LitHub (2017 May 26)