Beginning in Saigon during the Vietnam War and ending in present day New York, Catinat Boulevard tells the story of two friends Mai and Mai Ly. While Mai flirts with American GIs in rowdy bars along Catinat Boulevard, Mai Ly joins the communist resistance in the jungle. The story also follows Nat, Mai’s half Vietnamese-half African-American son abandoned in a Saigon orphanage.

Born in Vietnam, Caroline Vu left her native country at the age of 11. She lives in Montreal, where she works as a family physician at a community health centre. Her first novel, Palawan Story, won the Canadian Author Association's Fred Kerner Prize and was shortlisted for the Concordia University First Book Prize. Her second novel, That Summer in Provincetown, was optioned by Chantal Thuy. Catinat Boulevard is her third novel.

Caroline Vu's profile page

Compelling, intense and audaciously vivid...Caroline Vu is a powerful and evocative storyteller.

Cora Sire, Paragraph-Hugh McLennan finalist and author of Behold Things Beautiful

...sublimely written and told without a hint of self-pity or undo sentimentality.

Susan Doherty, winner of the Mavis Gallant Prize and author of The Ghost Garden