Canongate snaps up debut poetry book from Dylan Thomas Prize winner Le

Canongate has snapped up 36 Ways of Writing A Vietnamese Poem, a debut poetry book from Dylan Thomas Prize winner Nam Le.

Canongate’s publisher at large Francis Bickmore acquired UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada and ANZ) to the debut poetry book by Le, who won the Dylan Thomas Prize for his short story collection The Boat (Canongate).

Bickmore purchased rights from Fiona Baird at WME Agency and Canongate will be publishing the book in March 2024, alongside Knopf in the USA and Simon and Schuster in Australia.

36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem is described by the publisher as "a powerful and devastating book-length poem that honours every convention of diasporic literature – in a virtuosic array of forms and registers – before shattering the form itself".

The synopsis adds: "In line with the works of Claudia Rankine, Cathy Park Hong and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, this book is an urgent, unsettling reckoning with identity – and the violences of identity."

Le is an international bestselling writer who has received awards in America, Europe and Australia, including the PEN/Malamud Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award and the Melbourne Prize for Literature.

He said: "This book is a return to poetry, my first love and discipline, and for me it’s a return to first principles. I’m so grateful to Francis Bickmore and his whole team for taking this creative tack with me. It’s an honour to publish with Canongate again."

Bickmore added: "Fans of Nam Le’s 2008 debut The Boat will not be surprised to find he can remake the form of poetry with the same excoriating power and skill with which his debut detonated the short story form."