Lê thi diem thúy was born in Phan Thiet, Southern Vietnam. She and her father left Vietnam by boat in 1978, eventually settling in Southern California. The writer was born in 1972, a year that is remembered in its totality as “the red fiery summer,” a time of fierce attacks from the north that resulted in fires that scorched the countryside. Her novel, The Gangster We Are All Looking For, captures the family’s experience; first appeared in the Massachusetts Review ; and was reprinted in Harper’s. It was included in Best American Essays `97, (as well the edition of Best American Essays that contains a selection of the “best of the best” from the past 12 volumes).

Thúy is also a solo performance artist whose works, “Red Fiery Summer” (Mua He Do Lua), and “the bodies between us” have been presented at, among other venues, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the International Women Playwright’s Festival in Galway, Ireland, and the Vineyard Theater in New York City.

The author has been awarded residencies from The Headlands Center For The Arts, Hedgebrook and The Lannan Foundation and a New Works For A New World grant from the New World Theater at UMASS-Amherst and the New England Foundation for the Arts. She was a Radcliffe Fellow in 2003, a Guggenheim Fellow in 2004, and a United States Artists Ford Fellow in 2008. She lives in Massachusetts.