Pioneer Girl

"A powerful and wholly original American saga." --San Francisco Chronicle

Bich Minh Nguyen's previous books--the acclaimed memoir Stealing Buddha's Dinner and the American Book Award-winning novel Short Girls--established her talents as a writer of keen cultural observation. In Pioneer Girl, Nguyen entwines the Asian American experience with the escapist pleasures of literature, in a dazzling mystery about the origins of Laura Ingalls Wilder's classic Little House on the Prairie.

Lee Lien has long dodged her Vietnamese family's rigid expectations by immersing herself in books. But now, jobless with a PhD in literature, she is back at home, working in her family's restaurant under her mother's hypercritical gaze--until an heirloom from their past sends Lee on a search for clues that may lead back to Wilder herself, transforming strangers' lives as well as her own.


About the Author
BICH MINH NGUYEN (who goes by Beth) Is the author of three books: the memoir Stealing Buddha's Dinner and the novels Short Girls and Pioneer Girl. Her awards and honors include an American Book Award, a PEN/Jerard Award from the PEN American Center, a Bread Loaf fellowship, and best book of the year honors from the Chicago Tribune and Library Journal. Nguyen's work has also appeared in numerous anthologies and publications including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, and Literary Hub. Nguyen received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, where she won Hopwood Awards in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. She has taught at Purdue University and the University of San Francisco and is currently a professor in the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.