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Young Australian author wins Dylan Thomas Prize
November 11, 2008 - 11:26AM

A Vietnamese refugee who escaped to Australia by boat with his parents as a three-month-old has won the prestigious Dylan Thomas Prize for his debut collection of short stories, The Boat.

The $140,000 prize, which is sponsored by the University of Wales, is one of the highest paying literary awards in the world.

Le, who was raised in Melbourne, is the second winner of the award which is designed to encourage creative talent in writers under the age of 30 whose work has been published in the English language.

Le is working in New York, where he is the fiction editor of the Harvard Review, and next year he will do a residency at the East Anglia University in the UK where he plans to work on his next book.

He has previously won the Pushcart Prize, the Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award, and fellowships from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the Fine Arts Work Centre in Provincetown and Phillips Exeter Academy.

The chair of the Dylan Thomas Prize judging panel, Peter Florence, said Le's work "demonstrated a rare brilliance that is breathtaking both in the scope of its subject matter and the quality of its writing".

"Nam tackles his own background and circumstances as well as that of others with a clear eye, focused intelligence and wonderful use of words," Mr Florence said.

"He is, in this panel's opinion, a phenomenal literary talent, and I look forward to following his career as it progresses."

As one of six finalists, Le fought off competition from authors from around the world including 22-year-old Leeds poet Caroline Bird, South African Harvard graduate Ceridwen Dovey and Ethiopian journalist Dinaw Mengestu.

The Boat is a collection of short stories that takes the reader from the slums of Colombia to the streets of Tehran, from New York to Iowa City and from a tiny fishing village in Australia to a foundering vessel in the South China Sea.

AAP

source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/books/young-australian-author-wins-dylan-thomas-prize/2008/11/11/1226318611956.html