Winner of the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction 2009.
'The Boat raises the bar for Australian writing.'
PETER CRAVEN, Heat
'Nam Le is . . . a distributor of the peace.
'Consider the subjects of his stories: a child assassin in Colombia
('Cartagena'), an ageing New York artist desperate for a
reconciliation with his daughter ('Meeting Elise'), a boy's coming
of age in a rough Victorian fishing town ('Halflead Bay'), before
the first atomic bomb falls in Japan ('Hiroshima'), The
suffocations of theocracy in Iran ('Tehran
Calling'). This astonishing range is topped and
tailed by accounts of the uneasy reunion of a young Vietnamese
writer in America with his ex-soldier father, and by the title
story – the escape of a group of exhausted refugees from the
Vietcong in a wallowing boat.
'One might be permitted to think, after all this high seriousness
and intensity, Nam Le can't do funny. But this
criminally talented 29-year-old can do that as well.'
BARRY OAKLEY, Australian Literary Review
'Stunning'
The Times
'A fearless new Australian voice that accepts no geographical
limits: these are stories of leaping power and the most
breath-taking grace and intimacy.'
HELEN GARNER
'Wonderful stories that snarl and pant across our crazed world . .
. an extraordinary performance. Nam Le is a
heartbreaker, not easily forgotten.'
JUNOT DIAZ
'The fiction debut of the year.'
JAMES LEY, Australian Book Review
'The best book debut of 2008.'
New York Magazine
'The runaway literary success of 2008.'
Weekend Australian
