Yasuko Thanh

Last updated
Yasuko Thanh
Born (1971-06-30) June 30, 1971 (age 52)
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Occupationnovelist, short story writer
NationalityCanadian
Period2010s-present
Notable worksFloating Like the DeadMysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains

Yasuko Nguyen Thanh (born June 30, 1971) is a Canadian writer and guitarist. She has lived in Canada, Mexico, Germany, and Latin America and she was named one of ten CBC Books' writers to watch in 2013. [1] Thanh completed a Bachelor of Arts as well as a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria. She performs with the bands Jukebox Jezebel and 12 Gauge Facial, and lives with her two children in Victoria, British Columbia.

Contents

Early life

She was born in Victoria, British Columbia, to a German mother and a Vietnamese father. At age 15, Thanh dropped out of school and lived on the streets. Previous to winning the Journey Prize for her short story Floating Like the Dead in 2009, Thanh earned her living as a busker in Vancouver. [2]

Writing

Thanh's first novel Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains was published in 2016 by Hamish Hamilton, Penguin, Canada. [3] The novel won the 2016 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. [4]

Thanh's short story collection, Floating Like the Dead (McClelland & Stewart 2012), which includes the Journey Prize-winning title story, was on Quill & Quire's list of best books of 2012. [5] The National Post wrote that "Yasuko Thanh impresses above all with the thematic complexity of her approach." [6]

Her early work was published in literary journals such as Prairie Fire , Descant , Fireweed, The Fiddlehead and PRISM International . [2]

Her newest book, the memoir Mistakes to Run With, was published in April 2019. [7]

Thanh is in the process of completing her second novel, tentatively titled, Teddy's Blow Off Attraction, which is based on the life and relationships of Julia Pastrana. [8]

Awards

The short story "Floating Like the Dead" earned Thanh the 2009 Journey Prize. The book Floating Like the Dead (2012) was nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, BC's award for best fiction [9] and was shortlisted for the sixteenth annual Danuta Gleed Literary Award. [10] Thanh was also a finalist for the David Adams Richards Prize from the Writers' Federation of New Brunswick, the Canada Council for the Arts' Future Generations Millennium Prize, and the Hudson Prize. [11] The short story "Spring-blade Knife" from Floating Like The Dead won the 2013 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Short Story. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eden Robinson</span> Indigenous Canadian author

Eden Victoria Lena Robinson is an Indigenous Canadian author. She is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations.

The Journey Prize is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by McClelland and Stewart and the Writers' Trust of Canada for the best short story published by an emerging writer in a Canadian literary magazine. The award was endowed by James A. Michener, who donated the Canadian royalty earnings from his 1988 novel Journey.

The Danuta Gleed Literary Award is a Canadian national literary prize, awarded since 1998. It recognizes the best debut short fiction collection by a Canadian author in English language. The annual prize was founded by John Gleed in honour of his late wife, the Canadian writer Danuta Gleed, whose favourite literary genre was short fiction, and is presented by The Writers' Union of Canada. The incomes of her One for the Chosen, a collection of short stories published posthumously in 1997 by BuschekBooks and released by Frances Itani and Susan Zettell, assist in funding the award.

Billie Livingston is a Canadian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Livingston grew up in Toronto and Vancouver, British Columbia. She lives in Vancouver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heather O'Neill</span> Canadian writer (b. 1973)

Heather O'Neill is a Canadian novelist, poet, short story writer, screenwriter and journalist, who published her debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, in 2006. The novel was subsequently selected for the 2007 edition of Canada Reads, where it was championed by singer-songwriter John K. Samson. Lullabies won the competition. The book also won the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for eight other major awards, including the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Governor General's Award and was longlisted for International Dublin Literary Award.

Lee Henderson is a Canadian writer, the author of The Broken Record Technique, The Man Game, and The Road Narrows As You Go. The Broken Record Technique won the 2003 Danuta Gleed Literary Award, which recognizes a first collection of short fiction by a Canadian author writing in English. The Man Game was shortlisted for the 2008 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and won the 2009 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize as well as the 2009 City of Vancouver Book Award.

Gillian Wigmore is a Canadian poet and fiction writer from Vanderhoof, British Columbia. Her poetry fits within the genre of ecopoetry.

Kaie Kellough is a Canadian poet and novelist. He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, raised in Calgary, Alberta, and in 1998 moved to Montreal, Quebec, where he lives.

Souvankham Thammavongsa is a Laotian Canadian poet and short story writer. In 2019, she won an O. Henry Award for her short story, "Slingshot", which was published in Harper's Magazine, and in 2020 her short story collection How to Pronounce Knife won the Giller Prize.

Jacqueline Baker is a Canadian writer. Originally from the Sand Hills region of southwestern Saskatchewan, she studied creative writing at the University of Victoria and the University of Alberta.

Alex Leslie is a Canadian writer, who won the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT writers from the Writers Trust of Canada in 2015. Leslie's work has won a National Magazine Award, the CBC Literary Award for fiction, the Western Canadian Jewish Book Award and has been shortlisted for the BC Book Prize for fiction and the Kobzar Prize for contributions to Ukrainian Canadian culture, as one of the prize's only Jewish nominees.

Mireille Silcoff is a Canadian author, journalist, and editor. She is the author of four books, including the award-winning work of fiction Chez L'arabe (Anansi). Silcoff was a longstanding columnist with the National Post and is a contributor to publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, and Ha'aretz. She is the founding editor of Guilt & Pleasure Quarterly, "a magazine of new Jewish writing and ideas" (2005-2007), and the founder of a Toronto-based discussion salon (2004-2006) that was connected to the magazine. In 2006, Silcoff stepped away from all journalism, magazine work, and public appearances after developing the rare neurological syndrome, Chronic Cerebrospinal Fluid Leaks. After years of being bedridden, she began writing again for the National Post in 2010 and for the New York Times Magazine in 2011. The partially autobiographical Chez L'arabe describes her cloistered world of severe illness.

Kevin Hardcastle is a Canadian fiction writer, whose debut short story collection Debris won the Trillium Book Award in 2016 and the ReLit Award for Short Fiction in 2017. The collection, published by Biblioasis in 2015, was also shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and was named a best book of the year by Quill and Quire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claire Battershill</span> Canadian writer

Claire Battershill is a Canadian fiction writer and literary scholar. On September 15, 2017, Battershill was honoured by receiving a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Talent Award from Governor General David Johnston.

Kris Bertin is a Canadian writer, whose debut short story collection Bad Things Happen won the 2017 Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the 2017 ReLit Award for Short Fiction.

Paige Cooper is a Canadian writer, originally from Canmore, Alberta and currently based in Montreal, Quebec. Her debut short story collection Zolitude was named as a longlisted nominee for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize, a shortlisted finalist for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction and a runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award. A French translation of Zolitude was published by Éditions du Boréal in 2019.

<i>How to Pronounce Knife</i> 2020 short story collection by Souvankham Thammavongsa

How to Pronounce Knife is a short story collection by Souvankham Thammavongsa, published in 2020 by McClelland & Stewart. The stories in the collection centre principally on the experiences of Laotian Canadian immigrant families, sometimes from the perspective of children observing the world of adults.

Susan Sanford Blades is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is most noted for her debut novel Fake It So Real, which won the 2021 ReLit Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2021 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.

David Huebert is a Canadian writer from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Saeed Teebi is a Palestinian Canadian writer, whose debut short story collection Her First Palestinian was published in 2022.

References

  1. ↑ CBC Books' Writers to Watch in 2013
  2. 1 2 Writers' Trust Interviews Yasuko Thanh
  3. ↑ "Two debut novelists among this year’s Writers’ Trust nominees". The Globe and Mail , September 21, 2016.
  4. ↑ "Rogers Writers’ Trust: Celebrating the 2016 winners". Maclean's , November 3, 2016.
  5. ↑ Quill & Quire Best Books of 2012 | Floating Like the Dead
  6. ↑ Floating Like the Dead. National Post , April 13, 2012.
  7. ↑ "In Mistakes to Run With, award-winning author Yasuko Thanh looks back on her life as a sex worker". The Globe and Mail . April 30, 2019.
  8. ↑ Author Spotlight | Yasuko Thanh
  9. ↑ The Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize 2013
  10. ↑ Danuta Gleed Literary Awards
  11. ↑ Salty Ink Pitch and Plug with Journey Prize Winner Yasuko Thanh
  12. ↑ "Spring-blade Knife" wins[Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Short Story
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.