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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] |
