Melbourne author wins Dylan Thomas Prize
Melbourne author Nam Le has won the prestigious Dylan Thomas Prize for Literature, worth $140 000! The son of Vietnamese refugees who came to Australia when he was a baby, Nam Le is a qualified lawyer who quickly realised he didn’t want to live the corporate life.
His book The Boat is a collection of short stories set in diverse locations. When asked about this aspect of his work Nam said he is interested in the the way
’fiction makes strange even the places we think we know. Subjectively, no two neighbours live on the same street, let alone in the same city. However, fiction can also evoke our familiarity with strange things. It’s this tension I’m interested in — the artifice and agenda behind making familiar things strange, strange things familiar’,
(http://www.namleonline.com/q&a.html 18/11/08).
The Dylan Thomas Prize is the world’s largest literary prize awarded to an author under the age of 30.
Mrs Sweeney
