Linh Dinh

Linh Dinh (born 1963, Saigon, Vietnam) is a Vietnamese-American poet, fiction writer, translator, and photographer.

Life
Dinh came to the US in 1975, and is living in Philadelphia. In 2005, he was a David Wong fellow at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, England. He spent 2002—2003 in Italy as a guest of the International Parliament of Writers and the town of Certaldo. He was visiting faculty at University of Pennsylvania.

Career
He is the author of two collections of stories, Fake House (Seven Stories Press, 2000) and Blood and Soap (Seven Stories Press, 2004), and five books of poems, All Around What Empties Out (Tinfish, 2003), American Tatts (Chax, 2005), Borderless Bodies (Factory School, 2006), Jam Alerts (Chax, 2007), and Some Kind of Cheese Orgy (Chax, 2009). His first novel Love Like Hate (Seven Stories Press) was published in October 2010.

His work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, Best American Poetry 2004, The Best American Poetry 2007, and Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, among other places. The Village Voice picked his Blood and Soap as one of the best books of 2004. Translated into Italian by Giovanni Giri, it is published in Italy as Elvis Phong è Morto.

Reviews
Publishers Weekly reviews Linh Dinh's American Tatts: "The second effort in verse from this rising star of the small-press world turns his considerable powers to the depiction of acrid ironies, unmitigated disgust and politically charged gall. One of its opening poems imagines the poet as a half-knight, half-corpse 'Cadavalier,' exclaiming, 'This pinkish universe is really nothing/ But a flocculation of my desires.' A fast-moving poem called 'Pick-Up Lines'—one of many about sexual discomfort—instructs a lover to 'listen to my effluvium.' Dinh (All Around What Empties Out) often imitates (or perhaps quotes) subliterary material: online personal ads, instant messaging, brochures and corporatespeak ('We've entered a new level of parking consciousness'), confessions of X-rated adventures by semiliterate writers. His swift lines also portray the kind of grotesque caricature ('The day before her abortion,/ The one-eyed lady accidentally swallowed her glass eye') used manipulatively in politics. Exploring disgust while toying with frames and assumptions, the poet becomes in one sense a real heir to Charles Bukowski; in another, he joins other younger poets (such as Drew Gardner and K. Silem Mohammad) in a movement toward hard-edged, provocative parody. It might be hard to call Dinh's volume pleasing, but readers of a certain temperament may well find it irresistible."

He has translated many international poets into Vietnamese, and many Vietnamese poets and fiction writers into English, including Nguyen Quoc Chanh, Tran Vang Sao, Van Cam Hai and Nguyen Huy Thiep.

Poetry

 * Drunkard Boxing. Singing Horse Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0-935162-18-9
 * All Around What Empties Out. Subpress, 2003. ISBN 978-1-930068-19-3
 * American Tatts. Chax Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-925904-55-3
 * Borderless Bodies. Factory School, 2006.
 * Jam Alerts. Chax Press, 2007. ISBN	9780925904683
 * Some Kind of Cheese Orgy. Chax Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-925904-78-2

Fiction

 * Fake House (short stories). Seven Stories Press, 2000.
 * Blood and Soap (short stories). Seven Stories Press, 2004.
 * Love Like Hate (novel). Seven Stories Press, 2010.

Translated

 * Night, Fish and Charlie Parker (a bilingual edition of Phan Nhiên Hạo’s poetry). Tupelo, 2006.

Edited

 * Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam. Seven Stories Press 1996. ISBN 978-1-888363-02-9
 * Three Vietnamese Poets (translations). Tinfish, 2001.