Monique Truong

Monique T.D. Truong (born May 13, 1968 in Saigon in South Vietnam) is a Vietnamese American writer living in Brooklyn, New York.

Monique Truong
Native name
Monique T.D. Truong
BornSaigon
OccupationWriter, essayist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityVietnamese American
EducationYale University
Columbia University School of Law
Notable awardsYoung Lions Fiction Award Winner 2004, PEN/Robert Bingham Award Winner

Early life and education

Monique Truong was born in Saigon. In 1975, at the age of six, Truong and her mother left Vietnam for the United States as refugees of the Vietnam War.[1] Her father, an executive for an international oil company, initially stayed behind for work but left the country after the fall of Saigon.[1] The family lived in North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas.[2]

Truong completed her undergraduate studies at Yale University, graduating in 1990 with a B.A. in Literature.[3] She earned a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law[4] and went on to specialize in intellectual property law.[5]

Career

Truong co-edited the anthology Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry & Prose (Asian American Writers Workshop, 1998) with Barbara Tran and Khoi Truong Luu.[6][7]

Truong's first novel, The Book of Salt, published in 2003 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, takes place in post-World War I Paris, and tells the story of Binh, a Vietnamese cook who works for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. The inspiration for the novel came from reading in The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (1954) that Toklas and Stein had employed "Indo-Chinese" cooks.[7] The novel explores themes of sexuality, diaspora, race, and national identity. The Book of Salt won numerous literary awards, including the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, the Bard Fiction Prize, and a Stonewall Book Award.[8]

Her second novel, Bitter in the Mouth, published by Random House in 2010, tells the story of a Vietnamese-American adoptee growing up in the American South. Diane Leach wrote in The Los Angeles Times: "Monique Truong’s bone is the outsider’s plight, and her pen is a scalpel, laying perfect words down along that nerve until even the happiest reader understands what it means to forever stand apart from your family and the larger society you inhabit."[9]

Truong's third novel The Sweetest Fruits (Viking, 2019) is a fictionalized recreation of the life of the Greek-Anglo Irish-Japanese writer Lafcadio Hearn, as told through the voices of three women in his life. It was named a best fiction book of 2019 by Publisher's Weekly,[10] Mental Floss,[11] and PopMatters.[12]

Her novels have been translated into fourteen languages to date.[13]

From 2011 to 2012, Truong wrote the food column, Ravenous, in T: The New York Times Style Magazine.[14] She also received two James Beard Award nominations for contributing to Gourmet.[15] Her essays on a variety of topics, including food, racism, the Vietnam War, and the American South, have appeared in The Wall Street Journal,[16] O, The Oprah Magazine,[17] The Washington Post,[18] and The New York Times.[19]

In collaboration with the composer/performer/sound artist Joan La Barbara, Truong has written the lyrics for a choral work and a song cycle, and is at work on a libretto for an opera inspired by Joseph Cornell and Virginia Woolf.[20][21][22]

Truong currently serves as vice president of The Authors Guild.[23]

Books

Selected short fiction and essay publications
  • Vietnam: Identities in Dialogue
  • Bold Words: A Century of Asian American Writing
  • An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature
  • "Kelly"; "Notes to Dear Kelly", in Shawn Wong, ed., Asian American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology (New York, Longman, 1995) pp. 288–293.
  • "Kelly", in Amerasia Journal, 17.2 (1991)
  • Yale University's The Vietnam Forum
  • "Many Happy Returns", Food & Wine[25]
  • "My Father's Vietnam Syndrome," The New York Times[26]
  • "Why It's Every Person's Responsibility to Stand Up to Racism", O, The Oprah Magazine[27]
  • "The Hypocrisy of Eating at Mexican Restaurants," NPR's The Salt[28]

Honors

References
  1. Monique Truong – An Interview with Author, retrieved May 8, 2010
  2. Truong, Monique (June 18, 2006). "Opinion | My Father's Vietnam Syndrome". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
  3. Monique Truong: Meet the Writers, archived from the original on December 10, 2010, retrieved May 8, 2010
  4. "Summer Reading Recommendations", Columbia Law School, retrieved May 21, 2020
  5. "Monique Truong". Lannan. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  6. Nguyen, Viet Thanh. "Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose". Journal of Asian American Studies. Project Muse. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  7. "Monique Truong Interview". Writers Write. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
  8. "The Book of Salt: A Novel". Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  9. "The Saturday Read: 'Bitter in the Mouth' by Monique Truong". Los Angeles Times. August 28, 2010. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  10. "Best Books 2019: Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  11. "Mental Floss's 20 Best Books of 2019". www.mentalfloss.com. December 26, 2019. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  12. "The Sweetest Fruits, by Monique Truong [Viking Books]". PopMatters. December 20, 2019. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  13. "Monique Truong on Food, Literature, and Immigration, Fri, Oct 28 at 12:00 pm". The Center for the Study of the American South. October 28, 2016. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  14. "Posts published by Monique Truong". T: The New York Times Style Magazine. New York Times. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  15. "An Evening in the Kitchen with Brooklyn Novelist Monique Truong". Food & Wine. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  16. Truong, Monique (September 5, 2019). "Decoding a Smoky Italian Drink". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  17. "Why It's Every Person's Responsibility to Stand Up to Racism". Oprah.com. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  18. Truong, Monique (November 30, 2012). "A love letter to a N.C. barbecue joint". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  19. Truong, Monique (June 18, 2006). "Opinion | My Father's Vietnam Syndrome". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  20. "Roulette Intermedium 2019 Review: What's Left of Me Is Here". Opera Wire. March 22, 2019. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  21. Boyd, Stephanie (November 20, 2018). "Experiments in Opera's Modularias Fuses Voice and Modular Synthesizer". I CARE IF YOU LISTEN. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  22. Walls, Seth Colter (April 20, 2018). "Two Downtown Luminaries, Still Blazing". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  23. "Monique Truong - The Authors Guild". The Authors Guild. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
  24. 21 Books to Curl Up With This Fall , Newsweek,
  25. "Many Happy Returns". Food & Wine. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  26. Truong, Monique (June 18, 2006). "Opinion | My Father's Vietnam Syndrome". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  27. "Why It's Every Person's Responsibility to Stand Up to Racism". Oprah.com. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  28. "The Hypocrisy Of Eating At Mexican Restaurants". NPR.org. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  29. "John Gardner Fiction Book Award - English, General Literature and Rhetoric | Binghamton University". English, General Literature and Rhetoric - Binghamton University. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  30. "Monique Truong". www.baruch.cuny.edu. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  31. "You are being redirected..." www.jusfc.gov. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  32. "Helsinki Collegium - Projects". www.helsinki.fi. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  33. "Awards – American Academy of Arts and Letters". artsandletters.org. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
  34. "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Monique Truong".
  35. "Faculty & Fellows". Lewis Center for the Arts. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
  36. "Young Lions Award List of Winners and Finalists". The New York Public Library. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
  37. College, Bard. "Bard College | Bard Fiction Prize". www.bard.edu. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
  38. "Awards & Award Winners". PEN Oakland. Archived from the original on May 14, 2019. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
  39. "PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction Winners - PEN America". PEN America. May 3, 2016. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
  40. "ALA | Stonewall Book Awards". www.ala.org. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
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