tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056806344672425847.post2104396547725342403..comments2024-03-28T18:09:06.163+01:00Comments on Fx Reflects: Nam Le, The Boat, Penguin, 2008Frances Guerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09601712331094033951noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056806344672425847.post-88744951773442087462010-01-15T00:13:06.663+01:002010-01-15T00:13:06.663+01:00I hear what you say about the identity of the writ...I hear what you say about the identity of the writer, and it reflects back to me how much of an academic I am. It's hard not to see the box I inhabit!<br /><br />I agree, he has a Western story of privilege with certain class definition. The fact that he left Vietnam before he was even one year old says it all - the Vietnamese-Australian writer is the marketing strategy. But he also spoke Vietnamese to some people in the audience the other night - which tells me, he grew up in a Vietnamese household, with Vietnamese customs and probably cooking (lucky him!) That must, on some level, inflect his identity and his ethnicity. But you are right, he is very WesternFrances Guerinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09601712331094033951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3056806344672425847.post-2650480618535349202010-01-14T15:39:39.983+01:002010-01-14T15:39:39.983+01:00I think any questions about identity strike a writ...I think any questions about identity strike a writer strangely. My sense is that most writers see themselves as just writers and hence refuse the boxes around them. But they know, personally, that what they produce is marketed in particularly ways by agents and publishers and bookstores. This is the reality of writing and publishing, as much as we would wish for a more romanticized experience of a writer working alone at his craft. Nam Le knows this, but to recognize it would be to corrupt the whole process of writing as art, I suspect.<br /><br />All writers are situated in their culture and the processes of publishing. Nam Le's privileged education in Australia and his graduate education at Iowa, has shaped his writing as well. So it is strange to think of him as somehow a wandering, immigrant writer for his stories emerge from a creative life that was shaped and supported by experiences found most acutely in the wealth of the West. But can any writer really recognize this?Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00829529935907151115noreply@blogger.com