Nam Le Books
Nam Le is a Vietnamese-born Australian writer, born in 1978 in Vietnam and raised in Australia. He studied at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has received numerous literary awards for his debut collection, *The Boat*, including the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction.
Known for: The Boat
Books by Nam Le
The Boat
A collection of seven short stories exploring themes of identity, displacement, and the immigrant experience. The stories span diverse settings—from a refugee boat in the South China Sea to the streets of Colombia and the suburbs of Australia—showcasing Nam Le’s range and emotional depth.
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Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice
At the opening of the collection, I placed a story that runs close to the bone. It features a young Vietnamese-Australian writer named Nam — not me, but not entirely someone else either — struggling with his father’s silence about the war. When his father comes to visit him in Iowa, decades of grief...
From The Boat
Cartagena
The second story shifts violently outward — from the quiet interior spaces of Iowa to the restless streets of Colombia. Here, I followed Juan Pablo, a teenage hitman in Cartagena balancing loyalty, poverty, and survival in a world where violence is woven into daily rhythm. He has killed, and he will...
From The Boat
About Nam Le
Nam Le is a Vietnamese-born Australian writer, born in 1978 in Vietnam and raised in Australia. He studied at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has received numerous literary awards for his debut collection, *The Boat*, including the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fictio...
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Nam Le is a Vietnamese-born Australian writer, born in 1978 in Vietnam and raised in Australia. He studied at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has received numerous literary awards for his debut collection, *The Boat*, including the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fictio...
Nam Le is a Vietnamese-born Australian writer, born in 1978 in Vietnam and raised in Australia. He studied at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has received numerous literary awards for his debut collection, *The Boat*, including the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction.
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Nam Le is a Vietnamese-born Australian writer, born in 1978 in Vietnam and raised in Australia. He studied at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has received numerous literary awards for his debut collection, *The Boat*, including the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction.
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