Violet Kupersmith
Violet Kupersmith is the author of the short story collection The Frangipani Hotel and the novel Build Your House Around My Body.
Build Your House Around My Body
Winner of the 2023 Bard fiction prize
Finalist for the center for fiction’s first novel prize
Longlisted for the 2022 Women’s prize for fiction
“A rich and dazzling spectacle … that peels back the layers of a haunted Vietnam.”
Two young Vietnamese women go missing decades apart.
Both are fearless, both are lost. And both will have their revenge.
Violet Kupersmith's heart-pounding fever dream of a novel deftly combines Vietnamese history and folklore to create an utterly unforgettable debut.
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The Frangipani Hotel
“These stories — playful, angry, at times legitimately scary — demonstrate a subtlety of purpose that belies [Kupersmith’s] youth.”
Based on paranormal Vietnamese folk tales told to Kupersmith by her grandmother, these fantastical, chilling, and thoroughly contemporary stories are a boldly original exploration of Vietnamese culture, addressing both the immigrant experience and the lives of those who remained behind.
Violet Who?
Violet Kupersmith is the author of the short story collection The Frangipani Hotel and the forthcoming novel Build Your House Around My Body.
She previously taught English with the Fulbright program in the Mekong Delta and was a creative writing fellow at the University of East Anglia. She has lived in Da Lat and Saigon in Vietnam, and currently resides in the United States.