BICH MINH NGUYEN
Monday, February 19 at 7:30 p.m.

Co-presented with the INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER. A young family escapes from Vietnam shortly before the fall of Saigon and relocates to Grand Rapids, Michigan—then predominantly the home of white, Christian, Dutch-descended Midwesterners—in her luminous memoir, Stealing Buddha's Dinner (Viking). The winner of a PEN/Jerard Fund fellowship while still in manuscript, Stealing Buddha's Dinner is a powerful story about the pull of acquiring American-ness through the food, music, and Midwestern social norms of the 1980s versus fitting in the immigrant community, about the ways in which class and changing gender roles in that era split neighborhoods and families. It's also about a middle child learning to recognize her own inner swan "The author's prose is lovely and her imagery fresh. And in her recreation of a world populated by family ties, Ritz crackers, and Judy Blume books, she has captured the 1980s with perfection." - Kirkus Reviews.

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