Viet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam and raised in America. He is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the academic books Race and Resistance and Nothing Ever Dies. He is a cultural critic-at-large for the Los Angeles Times and teaches English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He lives in Los Angeles.
Praise for The Sympathizer: Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for
Fiction
Winner of the 2016 Edgar Award for Best First Novel
Winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in
Fiction
Winner of the 2016 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction
Winner of the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Winner of the 2015-2016 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature
(Adult Fiction)
Winner of the 2016 California Book Award for First Fiction
Winner of the 2017 Association for Asian American Studies Award for
Best Book in Creative Writing (Prose)
Finalist for the 2016 PEN/Faulkner Award
Finalist for the 2016 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut
Fiction
Finalist for the 2016 Medici Book Club Prize
Finalist for the 2015 Los Angeles Times Book Prize
(Mystery/Thriller)
Finalist for the 2016 ABA Indies Choice/E.B. White Read-Aloud Award
(Book of the Year, Adult Fiction)
Shortlisted for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award
Named a Best Book of the Year on more than twenty lists, including
the New York Times Book Review, Wall Street Journal, and Washington
Post "A layered immigrant tale told in the wry, confessional voice
of a 'man of two minds'--and two countries, Vietnam and the United
States." --Pulitzer Prize Citation "[A] remarkable debut novel . .
. [Nguyen] brings a distinctive perspective to the war and its
aftermath. His book fills a void in the literature, giving voice to
the previously voiceless . . . The nameless protagonist-narrator, a
memorable character despite his anonymity, is an Americanized
Vietnamese with a divided heart and mind. Nguyen's skill in
portraying this sort of ambivalent personality compares favorably
with masters like Conrad, Greene, and le Carr�. . . . Both thriller
and social satire. . . . In its final chapters, The Sympathizer
becomes an absurdist tour de force that might have been written by
a Kafka or Genet." --Philip Caputo, New York Times Book Review
(cover review) "This is more than a fresh perspective on a familiar
subject. [The Sympathizer] is intelligent, relentlessly paced and
savagely funny . . . The voice of the double-agent narrator,
caustic yet disarmingly honest, etches itself on the memory."
--Wall Street Journal (WSJ's Best Books of 2015) "Nguyen doesn't
shy away from how traumatic the Vietnam War was for everyone
involved. Nor does he pass judgment about where his narrator's
loyalties should lie. Most war stories are clear about which side
you should root for--The Sympathizer doesn't let the reader off the
hook so easily . . . Despite how dark it is, The Sympathizer is
still a fast-paced, entertaining read . . . a much-needed
Vietnamese perspective on the war." --Bill Gates, Gates Notes
"Extraordinary . . . Surely a new classic of war fiction. . . .
[Nguyen] has wrapped a cerebral thriller around a desperate expat
story that confronts the existential dilemmas of our age. . . .
Laced with insight on the ways nonwhite people are rendered
invisible in the propaganda that passes for our pop culture. . . .
I haven't read anything since Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four that
illustrates so palpably how a patient tyrant, unmoored from all
humane constraint, can reduce a man's mind to liquid." --Washington
Post "The great achievement of The Sympathizer is that it gives the
Vietnamese a voice and demands that we pay attention. Until now,
it's been largely a one-sided conversation--or at least that's how
it seems in American popular culture . . . We've never had a story
quite like this one before. . . . [Nguyen] has a great deal to say
and a knowing, playful, deeply intelligent voice . . . There are so
many passages to admire. Mr. Nguyen is a master of the telling
ironic phrase and the biting detail, and the book pulses with
Catch-22-style absurdities." --New York Times "Beautifully written
and meaty . . . really compelling. I had that kid-like feeling of
being inside the book." --Claire Messud, Boston Globe "Thrilling in
its virtuosity, as in its masterly exploitation of the
espionage-thriller genre, The Sympathizer was awarded the Pulitzer
Prize, and has come to be considered one of the greatest of Vietnam
War novels . . . The book's (unnamed) narrator speaks in an
audaciously postmodernist voice, echoing not only Vladimir Nabokov
and Ralph Ellison but the Dostoyevsky of Notes from the
Underground." --Joyce Carol Oates, New Yorker "Gleaming and
uproarious, a dark comedy of confession filled with charlatans,
delusionists and shameless opportunists . . . The Sympathizer, like
Graham Greene's The Quiet American, examines American intentions,
often mixed with hubris, benevolence and ineptitude, that lead the
country into conflict." --Los Angeles Times "Both a riveting spy
novel and a study in identity." --Entertainment Weekly "This debut
is a page-turner (read: everybody will finish) that makes you
reconsider the Vietnam War (read: everyone will have an opinion) .
. . Nguyen's darkly comic novel offers a point of view about
American culture that we've rarely seen." --Oprah.com (Oprah's Book
Club Suggestions) "The novel's best parts are painful, hilarious
exposures of white tone-deafness . . . [the] satire is delicious."
--New Yorker "The Sympathizer reads as part literary historical
fiction, part espionage thriller and part satire. American
perceptions of Asians serve as some of the book's most deliciously
tart commentary . . . Nguyen knows of what he writes." --Los
Angeles Times "Sparkling and audacious . . . Unique and startling .
. . Nguyen's prose is often like a feverish, frenzied dream, a
profuse and lively stream of images sparking off the page. . . .
Nguyen can be wickedly funny. . . . [His] narrator has an incisive
take on Asian-American history and what it means to be a nonwhite
American. . . . this remarkable, rollicking read by a Vietnamese
immigrant heralds an exciting new voice in American literature."
--Seattle Times "Stunned, amazed, impressed. [The Sympathizer is]
so skillfully and brilliantly executed that I cannot believe this
is a first novel. (I should add jealous to my emotions.) Upends our
notions of the Vietnam novel." --Chicago Tribune "A very special,
important, brilliant novel . . . Amazing . . . I don't say
brilliant about a lot of books, but this is a brilliant book . . .
A fabulous book . . . that everyone should read." --Nancy Pearl,
KUOW.org "Dazzling . . . I've read scads of Vietnam War books, but
The Sympathizer has an exciting quality I haven't encountered . . .
A fascinating exploration of personal identity, cultural identity,
and what it means to sympathize with two sides at once." --John
Powers, Fresh Air, NPR (Books I Wish I'd Reviewed) "Powerful and
evocative . . . Gripping." --San Francisco Chronicle "Welcome a
unique new voice to the literary chorus. . . . [The Sympathizer]
is, among other things, a character-driven thriller, a political
satire, and a biting historical account of colonization and
revolution. It dazzles on all fronts." --Cleveland Plain Dealer
"[Nguyen's] books perform an optic tilt about Vietnam and what
America did there as profound as Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and
Toni Morrison's Beloved were to the legacy of racism and slavery."
--John Freeman, Literary Hub "For those who have been waiting for
the great Vietnamese American Vietnam War novel, this is it. More
to the point: This is a great American Vietnam War novel. . . . It
is the last word (I hope) on the horrors of the Vietnamese
re-education camps that our allies were sentenced to when we left
them swinging in the wind." --Vietnam Veterans of America "What a
story . . . [An] absorbing, elegantly written book . . . If you are
an American, of any culture or color, you will benefit from reading
this book which offers, in exquisite thought and phrase, the
multi-layered experience of a war most Americans have blotted out
of consciousness, suppressed, or willfully ignored. I've been
waiting to read this book for decades." --Alice Walker, author of
The Color Purple "Magisterial. A disturbing, fascinating and darkly
comic take on the fall of Saigon and its aftermath, and a powerful
examination of guilt and betrayal. The Sympathizer is destined to
become a classic and redefine the way we think about the Vietnam
War and what it means to win and to lose." --T.C. Boyle "Trapped in
endless civil war, 'the man who has two minds' tortures and is
tortured as he tries to meld the halves of his country and of
himself. Viet Thanh Nguyen accomplishes this integration in a
magnificent feat of storytelling. The Sympathizer is a novel of
literary, historical, and political importance." --Maxine Hong
Kingston, author of The Fifth Book of Peace "It is a strong,
strange and liberating joy to read this book, feeling with each
page that a broken world is being knitted back together, once again
whole and complete. As far as I am concerned, Viet Thanh Nguyen's
The Sympathizer--both a great American novel and a great Vietnamese
novel--will close the shelf on the literature of the Vietnam War."
--Bob Shacochis, author of The Woman Who Lost Her Soul "Read this
novel with care; it is easy to read, wry, ironic, wise, and
captivating, but it could change not only your outlook on the
Vietnam War, but your outlook on what you believe about politics
and ideology in general. It does what the best of literature does,
expands your consciousness beyond the limitations of your body and
individual circumstances." --Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn
and What It Is Like to Go to War "Not only does Viet Thanh Nguyen
bring a rare and authentic voice to the body of American literature
generated by the Vietnam War, he has created a book that transcends
history and politics and nationality and speaks to the enduring
theme of literature: the universal quest for self, for identity.
The Sympathizer is a stellar debut by a writer of depth and skill."
--Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent
from a Strange Mountain "The Sympathizer is a remarkable and
brilliant book. By turns harrowing, and cut through by shards of
unexpected and telling humor, this novel gives us the conflict in
Vietnam, and its aftermath, in a way that is deeply truthful, and
vitally important." --Vincent Lam, author of Bloodletting and
Miraculous Cures and The Headmaster's Wager "I think I'd have to go
all the way back to Nabokov's Humbert Humbert to find the last
narrative voice that so completely conked me over the head and took
me prisoner. Nguyen and his unnamed protagonist certainly have made
a name for themselves with one of the smartest, darkest, funniest
books you'll read this year." --David Abrams, author of Fobbit
"Audaciously and vividly imagined. A compelling read." --Andrew X.
Pham, author of Catfish and Mandala "Nguyen's cross-grained
protagonist exposes the hidden costs in both countries of America's
tragic Asian misadventure. Nguyen's probing literary art
illuminates how Americans failed in their political and military
attempt to remake Vietnam--but then succeeded spectacularly in
shrouding their failure in Hollywood distortions. Compelling--and
profoundly unsettling." --Booklist (starred review) "A closely
written novel of after-the-war Vietnam, when all that was solid
melted into air. As Graham Greene and Robert Stone have taught us,
on the streets of Saigon, nothing is as it seems. . . . Think Alan
Furst meets Elmore Leonard, and you'll capture Nguyen at his most
surreal . . . Both chilling and funny, and a worthy addition to the
library of first-rate novels about the Vietnam War." --Kirkus
Reviews (starred review) "[An] astonishing first novel . . .
Nguyen's novel enlivens debate about history and human nature, and
his narrator has a poignant often mindful voice." --Publishers
Weekly (starred, boxed review) "Breathtakingly cynical, the novel
has its hilarious moments . . . Ultimately a meditation on war,
political movements, America's imperialist role, the CIA, torture,
loyalty, and one's personal identity, this is a powerful,
thought-provoking work. It's hard to believe this effort . . . is a
debut. This is right up there with Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke."
--Library Journal (starred review) "I cannot remember the last time
I read a novel whose protagonist I liked so much. Smart, funny, and
self-critical, with a keen sense of when to let a story speak for
itself (and when to gloss it with commentary). He's someone I would
like to have a beer with, despite the fact that his life's work is
the betrayal of his friends. . . . [Nguyen] proves a gifted and
bold satirist." --Barnes & Noble Review "Riveting . . . The
Sympathizer is not only a masterly espionage novel, but also a
seminal work of 21st century American fiction. Giving voice to the
Vietnamese experience in the United States, Nguyen offers profound
insights into the legacy of war and the politically and racially
charged atmosphere of the 1970s." --BookReporter "[A] shimmering
debut novel . . . Leaping with lyrical verve, each page turns to a
unique and hauntingly familiar voice that refuses to let us forget
what people are capable of doing to each other." --Asian American
Writers' Workshop "Arresting . . . One of the best pieces of
fiction about the Vietnam war--and by a Vietnamese. . . . Stunning
. . . Could it be that Nguyen has captured the shape of the
devolution of war itself, from grand ambition to human ruin? . . .
One of the finest novels of the Vietnam War published in recent
years." --The Daily Beast "[An] intriguing confessional . . . [a]
tour de force . . . So taken was I by the first quarter of the book
that I believed myself to be reading an actual confession . . . The
character himself . . . and the quality of the narration seized me,
leaving me almost breathless in my pursuit of an ending." --Sewanee
Review "Tremendously funny, with a demanding verbal texture . . .
Both tender and a bit of a romp, the book reminded me of how big
books can be." --Guardian (Best Books of 2015) "Astounding . . .
[The unnamed narrator] will be compared to the morally exhausted
spies, intelligence officers and double agents of Joseph Conrad,
Graham Greene, and John le Carr�." --Toronto Star
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