Thanks to Penguin here is your chance to win a copy of the The Boat by Name Le.

'Consider the subjects of his stories: a child assassin in Colombia ('Cartagena'), an ageing New York artist desperate for a reconciliation with his daughter ('Meeting Elise'), a boy's coming of age in a rough Victorian fishing town ('Halflead Bay'), before the first atomic bomb falls in Japan ('Hiroshima'), The suffocations of theocracy in Iran ('Tehran Calling'). This astonishing range is topped and tailed by accounts of the uneasy reunion of a young Vietnamese writer in America with his ex-soldier father, and by the title story - the escape of a group of exhausted refugees from the Vietcong in a wallowing boat.

'The Boat raises the bar for Australian writing.' PETER CRAVEN, Heat

'Nam Le is . . . a disturber of the peace.

'One might be permitted to think, after all this high seriousness and intensity, Nam Le can't do funny. But this criminally talented 29-year-old can do that as well.'BARRY OAKLEY, Australian Literary Review

Nam Le's first book, The Boat, received the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award, the Melbourne Prize (Best Writing Award), the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award, among other honours. It was selected as a New York Times Notable Book and Editor's Choice, the best debut of 2008 by the Australian Book Review and New York Magazine, and a book of the year by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Herald Sun, The Monthly, and numerous sources around the world. The Boat has been translated into thirteen languages and its stories widely anthologised. Le is the fiction editor of the Harvard Review.The Boat
Penguin Books Australia
Author: Nam Le
ISBN: 9780143009610
RRP: $24.95

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One of the countrys most talked about young writers, 31 year old Nam Le has been awarded the Kathleen Mitchell Award for his critically acclaimed debut book; The Boat, published by Penguin Australia. With inspiration drawn from the Le familys own move from Vietnam to Australia, The Boat has been described as an electrifying collection of short stories showcasing a sense of exceptional maturity and sophistication in writing.

The biennial Kathleen Mitchell literary prize awards young Australian authors who are 29 years or less at the time of their books first publication. Established in 1996 by the will of Kathleen Adele Mitchell, it aims to act as an incentive to improve young writers literary skills, as well as encourage them to maintain their passion and dedication to the advancement of Australia literature.