Monique Truong with GB Tran

Start: Sep 28 2011 7:30 pm

Wednesday, September 28, 7:30 PM
Monique Truong discusses her novel Bitter in the Mouth with graphic novel memoirist GB Tran

Brooklyn author Monique Truong’s bestselling debut novel The Book of Salt garnered numerous literary prizes and widespread critical acclaim for Truong’s intuitive understanding of exile and identity, her lyrical writing about food and cooking, and her subversive wit. All these and more can be found in Truong’s second novel Bitter in the Mouth, the story of a nearly friendless outcast in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, whose secrets include the fact that she has synesthesia: she tastes the words that people around her are speaking. Truong discusses her work with author/illustrator GB Tran, whose graphic novel Vietnamerica tells the story of his discovery of his parents' flight from Saigon in the last days of the Vietnam War. Truong and Tran talk about the ways in which both of their books are a unique spin on the memoir genre, and their experiences as Vietnamese-American writers.