Novelist Kim Thúy reveals for the first time that she has endured a toxic relationship and domestic violence in a heartbreaking text entitled I was afraid that he…
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Only Kim Thúy can reveal such dark moments so beautifully; besides, she lived herself! The author of the popular Ru and Em novels surprised everyone by sharing her previously untold story of domestic violence.
If we ignore the details of the events, which the 54-year-old writer (neither the time nor the identity of the man in question) recounts with such frankness and gentleness despite the violence, we understand that he has experienced numerous episodes of mental and physical illness Force. By whom? When? Or exactly? History doesn’t tell.
All we know is that the author took advantage of the carte blanche offered by Solo (Radio-Canada’s new platform that allows artists from all walks of life to share intimate and personal stories) to post today this episode of her past life to tell.
“When he left me on the sidewalk of an unfamiliar neighborhood at midnight in the middle of winter, without a single dollar in my pocket or socks in my boots, I was afraid he would call more,” he writes, the mother-of-two in the introduction to this powerful text.
“When he threw a plank at me, which landed in fragments after punching a hole in the wall a few inches above my head, I was afraid he wouldn’t accompany me to a friend’s chalet again,” she continues. We’re beginning to understand – in a heartbreaking way – that the sum of the acts of violence she was the victim of scared her of losing what was essential…: the chance to love.
“When he pushed me out of the elevator, so hard I hit the wall in the hallway and fell to the floor with the starfall, and he left me, I was afraid he’d fall asleep at the wheel on the long walk home without it me,” she wrote again.
In a tearful and heartbreaking fall, the Vietnamese author looks back on the moment her family came to save her from that hell. While out of love he forbids him to return to this violent man.
“I managed not to answer his calls after I left and to accept what seemed certain to me at the time, the writer continues: no man would give me the chance to love him anymore. To like.”