'Fifteen years after his best-selling, award-winning collection of stories The Boat, Nam Le returns to his great themes of identity and representation in a virtuosic debut book of poetry
'36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, says Le, a Vietnamese refugee to Australia, is ‘the book I need to write. The book I've been writing my whole life’. This book-length poem is an urgent, unsettling reckoning with identity and the violence of identity, embedded with racism, oppression and historical trauma. But it also addresses the violence in those assumptions – of being always assumed to be outside one’s home, country, culture or language. And the complex violence, for the diasporic writer who wants to address any of this, of language itself.
'Making use of multiple tones, moods, masks and camouflages, Le’s poetic debut moves with unpredictable and destabilising energy between the personal and political, honouring every convention of diasporic literature – in a virtuosic array of forms and registers – before shattering the form itself. Like The Boat, 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem conjures its own terms of engagement, escapes our traps, slips our certainties. As self-indicting as it is scathing, hilarious as it is desperately moving, this is a singular, breakthrough book.' (Publication summary)
'Nam Le is one of the strangest writers in the history of Australian literature and is also one of the most incandescently brilliant — which is very weird if you bear in mind that his primary claim to legendary status is a book of short fiction published in 2008. With 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, Le returns with a new work that encapsulates the brilliance and complexity that fans and critics have come to expect.' (Introduction)
'Nam Le’s long-awaited follow-up to The Boat is restless in its craft – a book that understands both form and identity to be in constant motion.'
'Nam Le is one of the strangest writers in the history of Australian literature and is also one of the most incandescently brilliant — which is very weird if you bear in mind that his primary claim to legendary status is a book of short fiction published in 2008. With 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, Le returns with a new work that encapsulates the brilliance and complexity that fans and critics have come to expect.' (Introduction)
'Sixteen years after his internationally lauded debut, the author of The Boat is back. He talks about writing under pressure, and why ‘authenticity’ is a trap'
'Shelf Reflection is our series where we explore the bookshelves and reading habits of some of our favourite authors. In this latest instalment, Nam Le talks to us about poetry, re-reading books and why his latest release, 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, is the book he has been writing his whole life.' (Introduction)
Nam Le Is Back
Michael Williams
(interviewer),
2024
27808632
2024
single work
podcast
interview
'When Nam Le’s debut book of short stories, The Boat, came out in 2008, it was met with unanimous praise and scooped up awards from around the world. Now, 16 years later, Nam has produced his follow up called 36 Ways to Write A Vietnamese Poem. This week, Michael sits down with Nam to discuss his latest work and the importance of violence in his conception of poetry and language.' (Production summary)
Nam Le on 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2024
27814749
2024
single work
podcast
interview
'Nam Le is one of Australia's foremost poets. His short story collection The Boat has been republished as a modern classic and is widely translated, anthologised, and taught. 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem is his first poetry collection.
'Nam has received major awards in America, Europe, and Australia, including the PEN/Malamud Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award, and the Melbourne Prize for Literature.' (Production summary)
