Some writers are easy to get a bead on: they maintain consistent personas in person and in their work, and return to stock subjects and situations across different books with a uniform voice and point of view.
Then there are writers like Yasuko Thanh.
After only two books – the 2012 short-story collection Floating Like the Dead (McClelland & Stewart) and her debut novel, Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains, out this April with Hamish Hamilton Canada – Thanh has proven to be a remarkably protean wordsmith, shifting from one subject and setting to another with startling confidence.