First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Canongate Books. First published in the United States in 2008 by Alfred A. Knopf. This paperback edition first published in 2009 by Canongate Books, Edinburgh. Paperback, 276 pages.
Cover design: gray318.


A wishlist book found at the library book swap shelf. Hadn't realized it was such a prize-magnet:

2010 Western Australian Premier's Book Award, Fiction (shortlist)
2010 Kathleen Mitchell Award
2010 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story
2010 (Italian) Premio Vallombrosa von Rezzori (shortlist)
2009 (Australian) Prime Minister's Literary Award, PMLA for Fiction
2009 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards: Australian Short Story Collection – Arts Queensland Steele Rudd Award
2009 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards: Fiction Book Award (shortlist)
2009 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction (shortlist) (later Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction)
2009 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards: Book of the Year
2009 Melbourne Prize for Literature, best Writing Award
2009 Australian Book Industry Award for Newcomer of the Year
2009 Australian Book Industry Award for Book of the Year (shortlist)
2009 Australian Book Industry Award for Literary Fiction Book of the Year (shortlist)
2009 Nielsen BookData Australia Booksellers Choice Award (Shortlisted)
2009 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards: UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing
2009 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist Award
2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize (nomination)
2009 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards for Fiction
2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book, Southeast Asia & South Pacific (shortlist)
2009 The Story Prize (longlist)
2008 Dylan Thomas Prize
2008 National Book Foundation's ”5 Under 35” Fiction Selections
2008 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award (longlist)
2007 Puschart Prize for short story Cartagena


Back cover:

Winner of the 2008 Dylan Thomas Prize

'A breathtakingly assured collection of stories — powerful, moving, unsparingly honest. A tremendous debut.' William Boyd

The Boat takes the reader on an unforgettable journey, far across the globe and deep into the lives of a handful f its citizens. Whether a hitman in Columbia, an aging New York painter, or a young girl stranded in the South China Sea, each of Le's characters struggles, in the face of profound personal and historical pressures, to maintain control of their lives. Through their stories the world both opens out and rushes in. The Boat is a remarkable debut, full of humanity, showing again and again how we are all ultimately connected to each other.

'The short story collection is constantly on the endangered list, but this stunning collection . . . shows that it is alive and in the best of health. Each story demands to be taken slowly and read more than once.' New York Times


About the author:
Nam Le was born in Vietnam and raised in Australia. He has received the Pushcart Prize, the Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award and fellowships from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the Fine Arts Center in Provincetown, Phillips Exeter Academy and the University of East Anglia. His fiction has appeared in venues including Best New American Voices, Best Australian Stories, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Zoetrope: All-Story, A Public Space and Harvard Review. He divedes his tme between the UK, Australia and the United States.


Nam Le at Wikipedia
The Boat | Nam Le, Official Website