|
The PEN/Jerard Fund Award ($5,500)
|
The PEN/Jerard Fund Award honors a work in progress of general
nonfiction distinguished by high literary quality by a woman at the
midpoint in her career. The Award is given in cooperation with
the New York Community Trust.
2005 judges: Ellen Feldman, Sheila Kohler, Abigail Thomas, Lynne Tillman, and Patty Volk
Please click here for more information on this award.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
2005 Winner
|
Presented by Lynne Tillman
Bich Minh Nguyen: Stealing Buddha’s Dinner
Frank, tender, unsettling, Stealing Buddha's Dinner
by Bich Minh Nguyen moves the reader with each event and image. Bich's
grandparents "gathered up the family and fled Vietnam to start over on
the other side of the world" in 1975. Her own and her family's subtle
and brutal collisions in Grand Rapids, Michigan, are rendered true and
palpable by the writer's candid imagination. In fiction and nonfiction,
the reality of a character's life lies in how it is experienced.
Nguyen's immigrant childhood resonates, as she captures the experience
of two cultures' clashing smells, religions, hair styles, clothes,
habits, and, especially, foods. As she writes it, her grandmother's
gathering toadstools in their backyard garden sets them apart from
their neighbors absolutely but also ineffably. America's foundational
story is the immigrant's tale, and, with its new citizens, the country
continuously remakes itself. Similarly, Nguyen's unique writerly
vision, her innovative and pungent voice, reinvents and renews this
venerable theme.
|
|
|
|
|
|
