Born in 1968 in Saigon, Monique Truong emigrated to the United States at the age of six. She graduated from Yale University and the Columbia University School of Law, specializing in intellectual property. Truong co-edited the anthology "Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose". Her debut novel, "The Book of Salt", became a national bestseller in 2003 and won several awards including the Bard Fiction Prize and the Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award. Recognized by the San Francisco State University Centre for Vietnamese American Studies as "a pioneer in her field as an academic, lawyer, and artist", she received the Excellence Award. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.