Lê Thị Diễm Thúy

Lê Thị Diễm Thúy (Phan Thiết 12 January 1972; pronounced lay tee yim twee) is a Vietnamese American poet, novelist, and performer. Her pen name is lowercase: lê thị diễm thúy.

Life Lê was born in the South Vietnamese village of Phan Thiết on January 12, 1972, during the Vietnam War.

In 1978, Lê left her homeland alongside her father in a small fishing boat. They were picked up by an American naval ship and placed in a refugee camp in Singapore. She eventually resettled in Southern California with her father. They lived in Linda Vista, San Diego, in decaying 1940s–'50s Navy housing, which they shared with fellow Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian "boat people," immigrants displaced by war. Lê's mother and sister joined them two years later, via a camp in Malaysia. Two of Lê's siblings drowned during her childhood: her eldest brother drowned in the ocean in Vietnam when he was six, while a sister drowned in a Malaysian refugee camp. Lê adopted the name of her deceased sister after her father mistakenly reported her name when they were rescued at sea. She has four surviving siblings, two of whom were born in America.

Lê was inspired to write by her love of fairy tales. Reading a book of Grimms' Fairy Tales, she recalls, "I felt transported. Things happen very suddenly in fairy tales: A man puts on a cloak and vanishes. I could relate to that. Once I was somewhere and then I was here, and everything had vanished. I didn't take it as fantastic. I thought it was real."

She moved to Massachusetts in 1990 to enroll in Hampshire College, where she concentrated on cultural studies and post-colonial literature. She chose the school because of its individualized, multidisciplinary curriculum and her desire to get as far away from San Diego as possible.