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The Book Of Salt
''The Book of Salt'' is a 2003 debut novel by Vietnamese-American author Monique Truong. It presents a narrative through the eyes of Bình, a Vietnamese cook. His story centers in Paris in his life as the cook in the home of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and is supplemented by his memories of his childhood in French-colonial Vietnam. This book is structured as a stream of consciousness narrative, in which Bình's present circumstances are mixed with episodes from his past, showing bits and pieces of people and events from the Lost Generation in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Characters Bình Bình is a gay Vietnamese cook who, at the present time in the novel, is living in Paris, working as the personal chef to Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas. Bình struggles to find a love, acceptance, and a home in Paris after traumatizing experiences in his youth in French-colonized Vietnam; in particular, he wrestles with his father's criticism and rejection of his homosexual son. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monique Truong
Monique T.D. Truong (born May 13, 1968, in Saigon in South Vietnam) is a Vietnamese American writer living in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from Yale University and Columbia University School of Law. She has written multiple books, and her first novel, '' The Book of Salt'', was published by Houghton-Mifflin in 2003. It was a national bestseller, and was awarded the 2003 Bard Fiction Prize, the Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award. She has also written ''Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry & Prose'', along with Barbara Tran and Luu Truong Khoi, and numerous essays and works of short fiction. Early life and education Monique Truong was born in Saigon. In 1975, at the age of six, Truong and her mother left Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, mak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orient
The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the continent of Asia, loosely classified into the Western Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, and sometimes including the Caucasus. Originally, the term ''Orient'' was used to designate only the Near East, and later its meaning evolved and expanded, designating also the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, or the Far East. The term ''oriental'' is often used to describe objects from the Orient; however in the United States it is considered an outdated and often offensive term by some, especially when used to refer to people of East Asian and Southeast Asian descent. Etymology The term "Orient" derives from the Latin word ''oriens'' meaning "east" (lit. "rising" < ''orior'' " rise"). The use of the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ALA Stonewall Book Award
The Stonewall Book Award is a set of three literary awards that annually recognize "exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience" in English-language books published in the U.S. They are sponsored by the Rainbow Round Table (RRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) and have been part of the American Library Association awards program, now termed ALA Book, Print & Media Awards, since 1986 as the single Gay Book Award. The three award categories are fiction and nonfiction in books for adults, distinguished in 1990, and books for children or young adults, from 2010. The awards are named for Barbara Gittings Barbara Gittings (July 31, 1932 – February 18, 2007) was a prominent American activist for LGBT equality. She organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) from 1958 to 1963, edited the national DOB magazine ''The Ladd ..., Israel Fishman, and (jointly) Mike Morgan and Larry Romans. In full they are the Stone ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted in 1989. The program has grown from 14 awards in early years to 24 awards today. Early categories such as HIV/AIDS literature were dropped as the prominence of the AIDS crisis within the gay community waned, and categories for bisexual and transgender literature were added as the community became more inclusive. In addition to the primary literary awards, Lambda Literary also presents a number of special awards. Award categories Current Notes 1 In both the bisexual and transgender categories, presentation may vary according to the number of eligible titles submitted in any given year. If the number of titles warrants, then separate awards are presented in either two (Fiction and Nonfiction, with the Fiction category inclusive of poetr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Language
A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language (first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a foreign language. A speaker's dominant language, which is the language a speaker uses most or is most comfortable with, is not necessarily the speaker's first language. For example, the Canadian census defines first language for its purposes as "the first language learned in childhood and still spoken", recognizing that for some, the earliest language may be lost, a process known as language attrition. This can happen when young children start school or move to a new language environment. Second-language acquisition The distinction between acquiring and learning was made by Stephen Krashen (1982) as part of his Monitor Theory. According to Krashen, the ''acquisition'' of a language is a natural process; whereas ''learning'' a language is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Generation Immigrant
In sociology, people who permanently resettle to a new country are considered immigrants, regardless of the legal status of their citizenship or residency. The United States Census Bureau (USCB) uses the term "generational status" to refer to the place of birth of an individual or an individual's parents. First-generation immigrants are the first foreign-born family members to gain citizenship or permanent residency in the country. People beyond the first generation are not "immigrants" in the strictest sense of the word and, depending on local laws, may have received citizenship from birth. The categorization of immigrants into generations helps sociologists and demographers track how the children and subsequent generations of immigrant forebears compare to sections of the population that do not have immigrant background or to equivalent generations of prior eras. First generation According to USCB, the first generation of immigrants is composed of individuals who are fore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nostalgia
Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word ''nostalgia'' is a learned formation of a Greek language, Greek compound, consisting of (''nóstos''), meaning "homecoming", a Homeric word, and (''álgos''), meaning "sorrow" or "despair", and was coined by a 17th-century medical student to describe the anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home. Described as a medical condition—a form of Depression (mood), melancholy—in the Early Modern period, it became an important Trope (literature), trope in Romanticism. Nostalgia is associated with a longing for the past, its personalities, possibilities, and events, especially the "Good old days, good ol' days" or a "warm childhood". There is a predisposition, caused by cognitive biases such as rosy retrospection, for people to view the past more favourably and future more negatively. When applied to one's beliefs about a society or institutio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sodom And Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah () were two legendary biblical cities destroyed by God for their wickedness. Their story parallels the Genesis flood narrative in its theme of God's anger provoked by man's sin (see Genesis 19:1–28). They are mentioned frequently in the prophets and the New Testament as symbols of human wickedness and divine retribution, and the Quran also contains a version of the story about the two cities. The legend of their destruction may have originated as an attempt to explain the remains of third-millennium Bronze Age cities in the region, and subsequent Late Bronze Age collapse. Etymology The etymology of the names ''Sodom'' and ''Gomorrah'' is uncertain, and scholars disagree about them. They are known in Hebrew as hbo, , Səḏōm, label=none and hbo, , 'Ămōrā, label=none. In the Septuagint, these became grc, Σόδομα, Sódoma, label=none and grc, Γόμορρᾰ, Gómorrha, label=none; the Hebrew ghayn was absorbed by ayin sometime after the Septuagin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lot (Bible)
Lot (; he, לוֹט ''Lōṭ'', lit. "veil" or "covering"; gr, Λώτ ''Lṓt''; ar, لُوط ''Lūṭ''; Syriac: ܠܘܛ ''Lōṭ'') was a man in the biblical Book of Genesis, chapters 11–14 and 19. Notable events in his life include his journey with his uncle Abram (Abraham); his flight from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, during which Lot's wife became a pillar of salt; and his being intoxicated by his daughters so that they could have sexual intercourse with him and ensure their family would have descendants. Biblical account According to the Hebrew Bible, Lot was born to Haran, who died in Ur of the Chaldees. Terah, Lot's grandfather, took Abram (later called Abraham), Lot, and Sarai (later called Sarah) to go into Canaan. They settled at the site called Haran where Terah died. As a part of the covenant of the pieces, God told Abram to leave his country and his kindred. Abram's nephew Lot joined him on his journey and they went into the land of Canaan, settlin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biblical
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a variety of forms originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. These texts include instructions, stories, poetry, and prophecies, among other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text can vary. The religious texts were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of the Bible. It is called the Torah in Hebrew and the Pentateuch (meaning ''five books'') in Greek; the second oldest part was a coll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to people of the same sex. It "also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions." Along with bisexuality and heterosexuality, homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation within the heterosexual–homosexual continuum. Scientists do not yet know the exact cause of sexual orientation, but they theorize that it is caused by a complex interplay of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences and do not view it as a choice. Although no single theory on the cause of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support, scientists favor biologically based theories. There is considerably more evidence supporti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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