Bich Minh Nguyen's novel Short Girls (Viking Penguin, 2009) was named an American Book Award winner in fiction and and a best book of the year by Library Journal. Her memoir-in-essays, Stealing Buddha's Dinner (Viking Penguin, 2007) received the PEN/Jerard Award from the PEN American Center and was a Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2007, a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book, and an Asian American Literature Award finalist. Stealing Buddha's Dinner has been featured as a common read selection within numerous communities and universities, including the all-state Great Michigan Read. Nguyen's work has also appeared in publications such as The New York Times; Gourmet magazine; and Dream Me Home Safely: Writers on Growing up in America. She is at work on her next book of nonfiction, Owner of a Lonely Heart. Her next novel, Little Gray House in the West, will be published by Viking in 2014.
Nguyen received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and currently teaches fiction and creative nonfiction at Purdue University. She has also coedited three anthologies: 30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years (Penguin Academic); Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: I & Eye (Longman); and The Contemporary American Short Story (Longman).
Nguyen's first name, Bich, is pronounced like "Bic." Nguyen, the Smith of Viet Nam, is pronounced something like Ngoo-ee-ehn (said quickly, as in one syllable), but most people tend to say "Win" or "New-IN" instead.