Lana Lin’s “The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam” has been longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for nonfiction. The book is published by Dorothy, an independent publishing project co-founded by Washington University in St. Louis’ Danielle Dutton, a professor of English in Arts & Sciences, and Martin Riker, a teaching professor of English and director of the publishing concentration.
“The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam,” which will be widely released Sept. 30, draws inspiration from Gertrude Stein’s “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,” in which Stein narrated her own life from the perspective of her partner. Here Lin, an experimental filmmaker, artist and writer, chronicles the life-journey of her partner, Lan Thao, beginning in war-torn Vietnam to her years in Canada, the couple’s first meeting and their decades-long personal and artistic partnership.
National Book Award judges, announcing the longlist, praised “The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam” as “an exploration of cancer, queerness, anti-Asian hate, and the delights and challenges that have connected the artists’ lives for decades.” Winners will be announced live at the 76th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner, which will take place Nov. 19 in New York. For more information about the awards, visit nationalbook.org.
Named for Dutton’s great-aunt, author and librarian Dorothy Traver, Dorothy is dedicated to “works of fiction or near fiction or about fiction, mostly by women.” The project has won national attention for its “unconventional, handsomely made” books (Paris Review) and “deft curation” of “razor-sharp and visceral work” (The Atlantic). It regularly provides internship opportunities to graduate students in the master’s in fine arts program in writing in Arts & Sciences. Read more at dorothyproject.com.
