Anthologies#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories |
2007 |
Buy |
| Finding the Words |
2011 |
Buy |
Collections#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Simple Recipes: Stories |
2001 |
Buy |
Picture#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Chinese Violin |
2001 |
Buy |
Standalone Novels#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Certainty |
2006 |
Buy |
| Dogs at the Perimeter |
2011 |
Buy |
| Do Not Say We Have Nothing |
2016 |
Buy |
| The Book of Records |
2025 |
Buy |
Madeleine Thien was born in Vancouver in 1974 and has spent much of her adult life between Canada, Malaysia, and Europe. Her fiction is shaped by her interest in how history moves through families — how political catastrophes leave marks on children who were not born when they happened. Her first short story collection, Simple Recipes (2001), introduced a writer with a clean, precise style and a willingness to sit with grief without explaining it away.
Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016) is the book that gave her an international readership. It spans decades of Chinese history, following musicians through the Maoist era, the Cultural Revolution, and the Tiananmen protests of 1989, with a contemporary frame in which a young Canadian-Chinese woman pieces together what happened to her father’s friends. The novel won the Giller Prize and Governor General’s Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her most recent novel, The Book of Records (2025), continues her interest in the intersection of music, memory, and political history.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many books has Madeleine Thien written?
Madeleine Thien has written eight books across four series.
What was Madeleine Thien's first book?
Madeleine Thien’s first book is Simple Recipes: Stories, published in 2001.
What is Madeleine Thien's most acclaimed novel?
Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016) is her best-known work. It follows multiple generations of musicians through twentieth-century Chinese history, from the Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square, and won both the Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award.