Nam Le’s writing encompasses fiction, non-fiction, poetry and writing for screen and stage.
His first book, THE BOAT, was critically acclaimed in Australia and overseas. It was translated into fifteen languages and won more than a dozen prizes internationally, including the PEN/Malamud Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award and the Melbourne Prize. New York magazine named it the year’s best debut and it was listed as a book of the year by over thirty venues around the world. THE BOAT, an international bestseller, has been republished as a modern classic in Australia and the UK, and its stories widely anthologised, adapted, and taught on high school and university syllabuses.
Nam’s second book, ON DAVID MALOUF, was published as part of Black Inc’s ‘Writers on Writers’ series. It was excerpted in Granta, Paris Review, The Monthly and Lit Hub, the last of which declared that the book ‘feels like a way in to a better conversation about race, representation, otherness, and belonging in the literary world.’
Nam’s third book, 36 WAYS OF WRITING A VIETNAMESE POEM, is forthcoming in March 2024.
Nam’s film and television projects include a screenplay, CARTAGENA, to be produced by Causeway, a stage play collaboration with Priscilla Jackman, and an online graphic adaptation of THE BOAT with SBS. Nam has contributed in various writers’ rooms on several TV projects, working with filmmakers Alice Bell, Justin Kurzel, Luke Davies, James Napier Robertson, Andrew Bovell, Anchouli Felicia King and Stuart Page among others. He is also a sought-after script consultant.
In 2021, Nam was Director’s Attachment to director Goran Stolevski for his feature film OF AN AGE.
In 2022, Nam was awarded a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship.
Adjacent to his writing, Nam remains consistently engaged with the creative community both in Australia and overseas, teaching at universities and schools, giving speeches and lectures, undertaking residencies, judging prizes and fellowships, and regularly mentoring other writers. Having lived for years in the US, UK, France and Italy, Nam now lives in Melbourne.
