Dogs at the Perimeter - Rilegato

A Globe and Mail Best Book

“If you read one Canadian book this year, let it be this one.”
— Johanna Skibsrud

“The story is so compelling, the characters so authentic and the writing so fine that you race through intently... savouring every page.”
 — Montreal Gazette
 
“The beauty of Madeleine Thien’s prose doesn’t reside only in its clarity and elegance. She’s a surveyor of damaged lives. Thien, a deeply empathetic writer, enfolds her wounded creations in morally precise language, offering the consolation of, in effect, storytelling.”
— Globe and Mail
 
“This book is as powerful as history, as magical as myth, and a light shining on one of the darkest chapters of modern history.”
— Alice Pung, author of Unpolished Gem
 
“Thien once again demonstrates a talent for creating vivid, indelible images in language both precise and lyrical...there is a confidence in Thien’s writing that many more accomplished authors never attain.”
— Quill & Quire
 
“Dogs at the Perimeter is a novel of quiet and breathtaking beauty.... Thien opens up the hearts of her characters with a precision that is deeply humane, peeling apart, page by page, the secrets they keep from themselves.”
— Jury citation, Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction (shortlist)
 
“The strife in Indo—China has inspired some astonishing writing in recent decades, both fiction and non—fiction. Dogs at the Perimeter belongs with the best of such works. But it also tells a more universal story about being borne back into the past — and the inescapability of history.”
— The Economist
 
“Dogs at the Perimeter explores the aftermath of war with a quiet power. . . . This is a beautiful, deeply moving novel that addresses universal questions.”
— The Independent
 
“Extremely moving and honest while maintaining lyricism and beautifully balanced prose...”
— A. L. Kennedy
 
“Fiction like this, clear—eyed and truthful, can give a shape to the chaos of history.... The quiet elegance of Thien’s writing makes a brutal story powerful and moving.”
— The Times
 
“Madeleine Thien’s second novel offers a gripping child’s—eye view of the Cambodian genocide. Sure—footed when it comes to which horrors to show and which to leave to the imagination, it is also utterly convincing in how it weighs the psychological damage inflicted by a regime that demands denial of family, friends and self as a condition of survival.”
— Financial Times
 
“Madeleine Thien’s powerful new novel reminds us, leaving the past behind is rarely simple.... The bewildering horror of ordinary people suddenly thrown into a world of brutal chaos is brilliantly evoked....Thien brilliantly evokes 1970s Cambodia, from the chaos of Phnom Penh to the sweltering, filthy work camps, from the interrogation centres to the lush forests. But she’s equally adept at bringing cold, clean Montreal to life, from its icy streets to Hiroji’s abandoned apartment.... Her novel leaves the reader deeply moved and, ultimately, hopeful.”
— Irish Times
 
 
 
 
 

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.