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Stealing Buddha's Dinner: A Memoir
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Stealing Buddha's Dinner: A Memoir Paperback - 2008

by Nguyen, Bich Minh

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In this viscerally powerful memoir, Nguyen pens a nostalgic, candid account of growing up as a Vietnamese girl in the Midwest in the 1980s, and using popular American food--from Pringles potato chips to Toll House cookies--as a way to fit in and become a real American.

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Details

  • Title Stealing Buddha's Dinner: A Memoir
  • Author Nguyen, Bich Minh
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Condition Used - Good
  • Pages 272
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Books, New York, NY
  • Date January 29, 2008
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Features Illustrated, Price on Product - Canadian, Table of Contents
  • Bookseller's Inventory # 0143113038-11-1
  • ISBN 9780143113034 / 0143113038
  • Weight 0.4 lbs (0.18 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.06 x 5.56 x 0.47 in (17.93 x 14.12 x 1.19 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 1950-1999
    • Cultural Region: Southeast Asian
    • Sex & Gender: Feminine
  • Library of Congress subjects Grand Rapids (Mich.), Nguyen, Bich Minh
  • Dewey Decimal Code B

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Summary

As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity, and in the pre-PC-era Midwest (where the Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme), the desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food. More exotic- seeming than her Buddhist grandmother's traditional specialties, the campy, preservative-filled "delicacies" of mainstream America capture her imagination.

In Stealing Buddha's Dinner, the glossy branded allure of Pringles, Kit Kats, and Toll House Cookies becomes an ingenious metaphor for Nguyen's struggle to become a "real" American, a distinction that brings with it the dream of the perfect school lunch, burgers and Jell- O for dinner, and a visit from the Kool-Aid man. Vivid and viscerally powerful, this remarkable memoir about growing up in the 1980s introduces an original new literary voice and an entirely new spin on the classic assimilation story.

From the publisher

Bich Minh Nguyen teaches literature and creative writing at Purdue University. She lives with her husband, the novelist Porter Shreve, in West Lafayette, Indiana and Chicago.

Categories

Media reviews

"Relevant not only to anyone who's ever lusted after the perfect snack . . . but anyone who's ever felt like an outsider."
-San Francisco Chronicle

"A charming memoir . . . Her prose is engaging, precise, compact."
-The New York Times Book Review

"Her typical and not-so-typical childhood experiences give her story a universal flavor."
-USA Today

Citations

  • New York Times Book Review, 03/02/2008, Page 28

About the author

Bich Minh Nguyen is the author of three books: the memoir Stealing Buddha's Dinner and the novels Short Girls and Pioneer Girl. Her awards and honors include an American Book Award, a PEN/Jerard Award from the PEN American Center, a Bread Loaf fellowship, and best book of the year honors from the Chicago Tribune and Library Journal. Nguyen's work has also appeared in numerous anthologies and publications including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, and Literary Hub. Nguyen received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, where she won Hopwood Awards in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. She has taught at Purdue University and the University of San Francisco and is currently a professor in the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.