Vietnamese-origin writer wins US National Book Award
Sunday, 18:24, 23/09/2012
Lai Thanh Ha, a Vietnamese American writer, has won the 2011 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, a prestigious prize in the US.
Ha’s book “Inside Out & Back Again” tells the moving story of a 10-year old girl's journey to the US in 1975.
Lai Thanh Ha |
But when the war reaches her home, she and her family are forced to flee Saigon, and they board a ship headed toward hope in a new country.
In America, the girl discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape, and the strength of her very own family.
In her book, Ha recalls her memories of her father, who died during the war, and her mother who devoted her whole life working hard to raise up her six sons and three daughters.
Ha says she is writing another book about Vietnam, and expects it to be published soon.