Nam Le (Photo Dave Tacon / Polaris)

Nam Le's first book, The Boat, received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award, the Melbourne Prize for Literature, the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Book of the Year, the Pushcart Prize, the Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award, a U.S. National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" Fiction Selection, as well as other awards, fellowships and shortlistings. The Boat was selected as a New York Times Notable Book and Editor's Choice, the #1 fiction book of 2008 by The Oregonian, the best debut of 2008 by New York Magazine, and a book of the year by numerous venues around the world including The Guardian, The Independent, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, The National Post, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Amazon and Publishers Weekly. The Boat has been translated into fourteen languages and its stories widely anthologised, adapted and taught.