In 2008, when Nam Le was 29, his debut garnered international attention. The Boat, a collection of stories unusual in its scope and global eye, brought prizes, headlines and lavish praise – and contractual commitments for a novel. Sixteen years later, Le has released his second book. Not the novel (it’s “getting there”, he says), but a brief, hardcover volume titled 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem: a collection of poems, or perhaps one book-length one.
While working on the novel, Melbourne-based Le, who did a stint as a corporate lawyer in an earlier life, had set himself strict limitations – no other projects, no distractions. But in the months after the birth of his first child (he has two), this intense focus was difficult to sustain. He turned back to poems, where he’d started. “I sort of let myself off the hook,” he says. “To be honest, I think it saved my connection with writing.”
