The University of California, Santa Cruz Center for Labor Studies Presents In Collaboration with UCSC’ L W R S A Reading by Internationally Acclaimed Novelist October 7, 2009 / 7pm / Humanities Lecture Hall / University of California, Santa Cruz Monique Truong is the author of the “poetically rendered and literally savory” 2003 novel, e Book of Salt, the story of a gay Vietnamese cook who worked for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s, and his previous life in Vietnam. Truong was born in Saigon in 1968 and moved to the U.S. at the age of six. She graduated from Yale University and Columbia University School of Law. Among other honors, e Book of Salt received the B F P, S B A-G L A, and the Y L F A, and was given an A E from the Vietnamese American Studies Center at San Francisco State University. She is also the co-editor of Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry & Prose, with Barbara Tran and Luu Truong Khoi, nd numerous essays and works of short fi ction. Truong’s new book, Bitter in the Mouth, will be published by Random House in 2010. Free and Open to the Public ❁ T HE UCSC CENTER FOR LABOR STUDIES IS FUNDED BY THE MIGUEL CONTRERAS LABOR FUND OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT , AND CO - SPONSORED BY THE UCSC DIVISION OF HUMANITIES . T HE UCSC LIVING WRITERS READING SERIES IS HOSTED BY THE CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM OF THE LITERATURE DEPARTMENT . This event was also generously supported by a Diversity Fund Grant from the Executive Vice Chancellor/Provost, and co-sponsored by Poets & Writers through a grant from the James Irvine Foundation, the Asian American and Pacifi c Islander Resource Center, the East Asian Studies Studies Program, the Porter College George Hitchcock Poetry Fund, the Laurie Sain Creative Writing Fund, and the Vice Chancellor for Research. Staff support provided by the UCSC Institute for Humanities Research. For further information or accommodations, contact the UCSC Institute for Humanities Research at 831-459-5655 or email [email protected]; web: http://ihr.ucsc.edu. For maps, http://maps.ucsc.edu.