Biography

Le Thi Diem Thuy was born in Phan Thiet, Southern Vietnam. She and her father left Vietnam in 1978, by boat, eventually settling in Southern California. lê currently resides in Western Massachusetts. lê thị diễm thúy was born in 1972, a year that is remembered in its totality as “the red fiery summer”, a time of fierce attacks from the north that resulted in fires that scorched the countryside.

Le is a writer and solo performance artist and her works, “Red Fiery Summer” (Mua He Do Lua), “the bodies between us” and “Carte Postale” have been presented at, among other venues, the Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, USA; the International Women Playwright’s Festival in Galway, Ireland; the Vineyard Theater in New York City; and the Crowley Theater in Marfa, Texas.

Her prose and poetry have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Harper’s Magazine, Muae and The Best American Essays as well as in the anthologies Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible, The Very Inside, Half & Half, and Watermark.

She has been awarded residencies from the Headlands Center For The Arts, the GAEA Foundation, and the Lannan Foundation and is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute For Advanced Study. A 2008 United States Artists Ford Fellow in Literature, she is currently at work on her second novel.