ontinuing its 2010 Literary Series – following appearances by Pireeni Sundaralingam, Andrew Lam, Ben Tran, and poems by Miguel Hernandez, Tadioto is pleased to welcome poet, performer and novelist lê thị diễm thúy, author of The Gangster We Are All Looking For (Knopf, 2001). (see more bel0w)
April 26th, 8pm @ Tadioto, 113 Triệu Việt Vương, Hà Nội.
adioto hân hoan đón mừng nhàvăn, nhà thơ, nghệ sĩ trình diễn lê thị diễm thuý, tác gỉa The Gangster We Are All Looking For (Knopf, 2001).
20h, ngày 26 tháng tư, tại Tadioto, 113 Triệu ViệtVương, Hà Nội.
lê thi diem thúy is an award-winning poet, novelist, and performer. Born in Phan Thiet, Central Viet Nam, in 1972, lê left her homeland with her father in a fishing boat in 1978. Picked up by a American naval ship, they were placed in a refugee camp in Singapore. She would eventually resettle to Southern California with her father. Lê’s mother and sister joined them two years later via a camp in Malaysia. Two of lê’s siblings drowned during her childhood; her eldest brother in the ocean in Vietnam when he was six while a sister drowned in a Malaysian refugee camp. Lê adopted the name of her deceased sister after her father mistakenly reported her name when they were rescued at sea.
Lê took her inspiration for writing from her love of fairy tales. I wanted to write because I loved fairy tales. Reading a book of Grimm fairy tales, she recalls, I felt transported. Things happen very suddenly in fairy tales: A man puts on a cloak and vanishes. I could relate to that.
She moved to Massachusetts in 1990 to enroll in Hampshire College where she concentrated on cultural studies and post-colonial literature. In 1993 Lê traveled to Paris to research French colonial postcards from the early 1900s—images of Vietnamese people taken by French photographers. Some of the images she collected would later appear in her performance work.
On her return to Hampshire, she wrote poems, prose and pieces of dialog that would form the foundation for her senior thesis and first solo performance work Mua He Do Lua/Red Fiery Summer. After graduation, she traveled the country from 1995 to 1997 performing Red Fiery Summer play in community spaces and formal theaters. In 1996, she was commissioned to write her second solo performance work entitled the bodies between us, which was subsequently produced by New WORLD Theater.
In the same year, she published a prose piece entitled The Gangster We Are All Looking For in Massachusetts Review. It was rerun in Harper’s Magazine later that year, and subsequently expanded into a novel.
Lê was cited by the New York Times as one of its “Writers On The Verge,” shortly before her novel, The Gangster We Are All Looking For, was published by Knopf (2001) to glowing reviews. Her work has appeared in the Massachusetts Review, Harper’s Magazine, and The Very Inside anthology, and among her awards are Fellowships from the Radcliffe and Guggenheim foundations.
note from writer Andrew Engelson:
wo from abroad: reading at 19:30, March 28, 2010 at 113 Triệu Việt Vương
Ben Tran is a fiction writer and literary critic. He has published a numerous works, from literary reviews and translations to academic and creative works, in International Poetry, Michigan Quarterly Review, positions, Pacific Time Public Radio, among others. His fiction looks at the disorienting world of Vietnamese emigres, while his research focuses on the literary and cultural history of Vietnam’s colonial period. He currently lives in Nashville and teaches at Vanderbilt University.
Andrew Lam is a syndicated writer and an editor with New America Media and a regular commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered. He co-founded New California Media, an association of 400 ethnic media organizations in California. His essays have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including The New York Times, The L.A. Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Chicago Tribune. He has also written essays for magazines such as Mother Jones, The Nation, San Francisco Focus, Proult Journal, and Earth Island Journal. His book, Perfume Dreams: Reflections On The Vietnamese Diaspora (Heyday Books), recently won the Pen American “Beyond the Margins” Award. His short stories are anthologized in several literary journals, publish his short stories, including: Manoa Journal, Crab Orchard Review, Nimrod International, Zyzzyva, and Transfer Magazine. Lam’s awards include the Society of Professional Journalists’ Outstanding Young Journalist Award (1993), The Media Alliance Meritorious award (1994), The World Affairs Council’s Excellence in International Journalism Award (1992), the Rockefeller Fellowship at UCLA (1992), and the Asian American Journalists Association National Award (1993 and 1995). Lam was born in Vietnam and came to the United States in 1975 when he was 11 years old. He has a master’s degree from San Francisco State University and a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from UC Berkeley.
ùng với Viện Cervantes, Tadioto xin mời bạn đến dự buổi diễn thơ của Miguel Hernandez (1910-1942) – nhà thơ, nhà viết kịch nổi tiếng của Văn học Tây Ban Nha thế kỉ XX. Sau khi tướng Francisco Franco tuyên bố kết thúc cuộc nội chiến, Đảng Cộng Hòa mà nhà thơ tham gia đấu tranh thất bại. Sau khi nội chiến kết thúc, nhà thơ bị cầm tù, năm 31 tuổi ông mất vì viêm phổi. Với sự diễn xuất của Pep Cruz – mặc dù theo học ngành kỹ sư nhưng sân khấu mới là niềm đam mê và Pep Cruz là thiên tài trong nhiều lĩnh vực. Trong suốt quãng thời gian 16 năm kể từ khi đầu tiên bước vào ngành này với vai trò là đạo diễn của TEI San Marçal, ông đã thực hiện 33 vở kịch và 20 vở rối. Chương trình gồm ba thứ tiếng Tây Ban Nha, Anh và Việt ngữ, sẽ diễn ra vào lúc 19h30 ngày25 tháng 3, 2010 tại 113 Triệu Việt Vương, Hà Nội.
n collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes, Tadioto presents the poems of Miguel Hernandez – renown poet and playwright, imprisoned under Francisco Franco until his death in 1942. With performances by Pep Cruz–an engineer turned actor, director, producer. With translations into English and Vietnamese. Music! The program will begin at 19:30 on the 25th of March, 2010 at 113 Triệu Việt Vương, Hà Nội.
