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'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)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
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(Review) 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , May 2024; (p. 65)
— Review of 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem 2024 selected work poetry 'When Nam Le's debut short story collection The Boat landed in 2008 it was so freighted, a big deal, that comparisons to Joyce’s Dubliners felt modest (as did suggestions the book would be read “for as long as people read books” – a little breathless even by blurb standards, of which there are none). A hot minute or two of radio silence followed. Then, in 2019, we got Le’s analysis of David Malouf. Recently, with sightings of Le in bookshops and at literary festivals, signs of something were afoot.' (Introduction) -
Nam Le's 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: Eureka Street , 25 March vol. 34 no. 6 2024;
— Review of 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem 2024 selected work poetry'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)
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Nam Le Published The Boat to Great Acclaim in 2008. Now He's Back with His Debut Poetry Collection
2024
single work
column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , April 2024; -
36 Mirrors : Force Majeure by the Truckload
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 463 2024; (p. 45)
— Review of 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem 2024 selected work poetry 'Even in his first publication, the seven short stories of the rightly celebrated The Boat (2008), Nam Le was perhaps always most interested in creating an aura of violent unpredictability. He withheld consistency, offered cruxes, hit the reader with a blizzard of bold plots in settings so varied as to be practically contradictory – Hiroshima, Medellin, New York City, a fishing town on the Queensland coast. Where, as in the title story, Nam Le appears to relent and writes about what may have been his own experience (he was ferried to Australia as an infant), the baby dies. He is like a package determined not to contain what it says on the disclosure form; a letter that won’t be delivered to the stated address.' (Introduction) -
Nam Le 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 8 April 2024;
— Review of 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem 2024 selected work poetry'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.'
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Bold’, ‘extremely Fun’, ‘luminously Written’ : The Best Australian Books Out in March
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 6 March 2024;
— Review of 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem 2024 selected work poetry ; The Silver River 2024 single work autobiography ; One Another 2024 single work novel ; Appreciation 2024 single work novel ; Loving My Lying, Dying, Cheating Husband 2024 single work autobiography ; Servo : Tales from the Graveyard Shift 2024 single work autobiography ; The Cancer Finishing School : Lessons in Laughter, Love and Resilience 2024 single work autobiography ; Thanks for Having Me 2024 single work novel ; Lead Us Not 2024 single work novel ; Always Will Be : Stories of Goori Sovereignty from the Futures of the Tweed 2024 selected work short story -
The Wait for the New Nam Le Is Over
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 9 March 2024; (p. 16)
— Review of 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem 2024 selected work poetry -
Nam Le 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 8 April 2024;
— Review of 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem 2024 selected work poetry'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.'
-
36 Mirrors : Force Majeure by the Truckload
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 463 2024; (p. 45)
— Review of 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem 2024 selected work poetry 'Even in his first publication, the seven short stories of the rightly celebrated The Boat (2008), Nam Le was perhaps always most interested in creating an aura of violent unpredictability. He withheld consistency, offered cruxes, hit the reader with a blizzard of bold plots in settings so varied as to be practically contradictory – Hiroshima, Medellin, New York City, a fishing town on the Queensland coast. Where, as in the title story, Nam Le appears to relent and writes about what may have been his own experience (he was ferried to Australia as an infant), the baby dies. He is like a package determined not to contain what it says on the disclosure form; a letter that won’t be delivered to the stated address.' (Introduction) -
Nam Le's 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: Eureka Street , 25 March vol. 34 no. 6 2024;
— Review of 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem 2024 selected work poetry'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)
-
The Return of Nam Le: ‘As Long as I’m Terrifying Myself a Little Bit, I’m on the Right Track’
Imogen Dewey
(interviewer),
2024
single work
interview
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 28 February 2024;'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'
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Shelf Reflection : Nam Le
2024
single work
column
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , February 2024;'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)
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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)
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y
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)
-
Nam Le Published The Boat to Great Acclaim in 2008. Now He's Back with His Debut Poetry Collection
2024
single work
column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , April 2024;