ESEA Lit Fest: On duty and displacement with Thuận & Yan Ge

Join Yan Ge and Thuận on a voyage away from home, discussing the commitments we make to ourselves and those closest to us, and how far these journeys can take us. They’ll be joined by writer Ian Russell-Hsieh.

Thuận was born in 1967 in Hanoi. She is the author of ten novels and a recipient of the Writers’ Union Prize, the highest award in Vietnamese literature. Seven of her novels were translated and published in France. Chinatown, her debut novel in English, won a PEN Translates Award and the 2023 ALTA National Translation Award. Her second novel to appear in English, Elevator in Saigon, translated by Nguyễn An Lý, is published by Tilted Axis Press in 2024. She currently lives in Paris.

Yan Ge was born in Sichuan, China in 1984. She is a fiction writer in both Chinese and English who has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Mao Dun Literature Prize (Best Young Writer). She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Her English-language debut, Elsewhere, a short story collection, was published by Faber in 2023.

Ian Russell-Hsieh is a Taiwanese-British writer based in Cornwall. A contributing style, culture and lifestyle writer for Mr Porter, The Guardian, Dazed and others, his debut novel I'm New Here was published by Scribner in February 2024.

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