The Penguin Speakers Bureau

Bich Minh Nguyen (pronounced Bit Min New-`win) was born in Saigon in 1974. Her family fled Vietnam on April 29, 1975, and eventually settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Nguyen grew up. These experiences formed the basis of her memoir, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, which received the PEN/Jerard Award and was named a best book of 2007 by The Chicago Tribune. Nguyen has appeared on programs such as The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer to discuss the prevalent themes in her book—immigration, food, and family—and how they relate to so many other areas of life. Her work has also appeared in publications such as Gourmet magazine, Jane magazine, the anthology Dream Me Home Safely: Writers on Growing up in America, and the anthology Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose. She also coedited three anthologies: 30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years (Penguin Academic), Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: I & Eye (Longman), and The Contemporary American Short Story (Longman).

Nguyen teaches literature and creative writing at Purdue University. She lives with her husband, the novelist Porter Shreve, in West Lafayette, Indiana, and Chicago. She is currently at work on a novel, Short Girls.

Visit her website at www.bichminhnguyen.com.