Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Readalikes
Monique Truong s a Vietnamese American writer. She graduated from Yale University and the Columbia University School of Law, going on to specialize in intellectual property.
Truong coedited the anthology Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose, and her essay Welcome to America was featured on National Public Radio. Granting her an award of excellence, the Vietnamese American Studies Center at San Francisco State University called her "a pioneer in the field, as an academic, an advocate, and an artist." She was awarded a prestigious Lannan Foundation writing residency in 2001.
Her other works are Bitter in the Mouth (2010) and The Book of Salt (2003). Bitter in the Mouth received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was named a 25 Best Fiction Books of 2010 by Barnes & Noble, a 10 Best Fiction Books of 2010 by Hudson Booksellers, and the adult fiction Honor Book by the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association.
The Book of Salt was a national bestseller and the recipient of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Bard Fiction Prize, the Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award, a PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles National Literary Award, an Association for Asian American Studies Poetry/Prose Award, and a Seventh Annual Asian American Literary Award. In 2003,The Book of Salt was honored as a New York Times Notable Fiction Book, a Chicago Tribune Favorite Fiction Book, one of the Village Voice's 25 Favorite Books, and one of the Miami Herald's Top 10 Books, among other citations.
About This Biography
This biography was last updated on 11/11/2014. We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate, but with over 2500 lives to keep track of it's inevitable that some won't be as current or as complete as we would like. So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date, inaccurate or simply very short, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and those connected with authors:
If you wish to make changes to your bio, send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we can replace the old with the new.
An Interview with Monique Truong
The main character of The Book of Salt is a cook. What's your
relationship to the preparation of food?
I cook for pleasure. I cook to experience something new. I cook, like the
characters in my novel, to remind me of where I have been. I always cook or
rather I always "taste" the food first in my mind. I approach a recipe
like a story. I imagine it, sometimes I have a dream about it, then I go about
crafting it.
Tell us about the novel's structure.
The Book of Salt opens in Paris in October of 1934. Bình, the
cook, has accompanied his employers Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas to the
train station. He seems to be faced with a decision. Will he go to the United
States with his Mesdames? Will he return to his family in Vietnam, or, will he
continue his life in France or will he travel to some other place of his
choosing? Before Bình's "choice" is revealed, the reader is brought
back in time and made privy to the stories of the Vietnamese cook and of his
American employers. What led each of them to live far from the land of their
birth? What, if anything, could bring them back home again? The answers to these
questions are found in Bình's ...
Monica Ali is the daughter of English and Bangladeshi parents.
She came to England at the age of three, and her first home was Bolton in Greater Manchester. Ali later studied at Oxford University.
Her first novel, Brick ...
(more)
If you enjoyed:
The Book of Salt
Try:
Brick Lane
by Monica Ali
Glen David Gold is best known as the author of Carter Beats the Devil, a fictionalized biography of Charles Joseph Carter (1874-1936), an American illusionist performing from c.1900-1936. He writes in a narrative style, and ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
The Book of Salt
Try:
Sunnyside
by Glen David Gold
We recommend 9 similar authors
Darling Days
by iO Tillett Wright
A devastatingly powerful memoir of one young woman's extraordinary coming of age.
The Tea Planter's Wife
by Dinah Jefferies
An utterly engrossing, compulsive page-turner set in 1920s Ceylon.
An irresistible love story for fans of Beautiful Ruins and Where'd You Go, Bernadette?
About the book
Blood at the Root
"A gripping, timely, and important examination of American racism."
- PW Starred Review
Visitors can view some of BookBrowse for free. Full access is for members only.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends books that we believe to be best in class. Books that will whisk you to faraway places and times, that will expand your mind and challenge you -- the kinds of books you just can't wait to tell your friends about.
Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info & giveaways by email.
