51 pages • 1 hour read
Simple Recipes
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Summary and Study Guide
Overview
Madeleine Thien is a Canadian writer whose work explores the trans-cultural world of Asian art, politics, and family life within Canada’s diasporic Asian Communities. She was born in 1974 to a Malaysian Chinese father and a Hong Kong Chinese mother. Thien studied contemporary dance but switched to creative writing as an undergraduate in college. She earned her MFA in writing from the University of British Columbia.
Thien’s collection of short stories, Simple Recipes (2001, Little Brown & Company) was named a notable book by the 2001 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. The book also garnered the Emerging Writers Award from the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop. In 1991 she was a finalist for the Writer’s Trust of Canada RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. The short stories in Simple Recipes explore the conflicts within both intergenerational and intercultural relationships. Family relationships are often at the center of her work as are the themes of home and trauma. The collection received the praise of Nobel Prize Laureate Alice Munro, who said, “This is surely the debut of a splendid writer.”
Since publishing Simple Recipes, Thien has gone on to have a distinguished career in writing. Her critically acclaimed novel Unlock all 51 pages of this Study Guide Plus, gain access to 8,900+ more expert-written Study Guides. Including features:
