The Sympathizer by
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 "[A] remarkable debut novel"--Philip Caputo,New York Times Book Review (cover review) The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as seven other awards,The Sympathizer is one of the most acclaimed books of the twenty-first century. With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared to Graham Greene and Vladimir Nabokov,The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a "man of two minds," a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who comes to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam.The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping spy novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.
The Committed by
The sequel toThe Sympathizer, which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and went on to sell over a million copies worldwide,The Committed tells the story of "the man of two minds" as he comes as a refugee to France and turns his hand to capitalism The long-awaited follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winningThe Sympathizer, which has sold more than one million copies worldwide,The Committed follows the man of two minds as he arrives in Paris in the early 1980s with his blood brother Bon. The pair try to overcome their pasts and ensure their futures by engaging in capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. Traumatized by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, Man, and struggling to assimilate into French culture, the Sympathizer finds Paris both seductive and disturbing. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals whom he meets at dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese "aunt," he finds stimulation for his mind but also customers for his narcotic merchandise. But the new life he is making has perils he has not foreseen, whether the self-torture of addiction, the authoritarianism of a state locked in a colonial mindset, or the seeming paradox of how to reunite his two closest friends whose worldviews put them in absolute opposition. The Sympathizer will need all his wits, resourcefulness, and moral flexibility if he is to prevail. Both highly suspenseful and existential,The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen's position in the firmament of American letters.
The Refugees by
Viet Thanh Nguyen'sThe Sympathizer was one of the most widely and highly praised novels of 2015, the winner not only of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but also the Center for Fiction Debut Novel Prize, the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, the ALA Carnegie Medal for Fiction, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and the California Book Award for First Fiction. Nguyen's next fiction book,The Refugees, is a collection of perfectly formed stories written over a period of twenty years, exploring questions of immigration, identity, love, and family. With the coruscating gaze that informedThe Sympathizer, inThe Refugees Viet Thanh Nguyen gives voice to lives led between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half-sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will, the stories are a captivating testament to the dreams and hardships of immigration. The second piece of fiction by a major new voice in American letters,The Refugees is a beautifully written and sharply observed book about the aspirations of those who leave one country for another, and the relationships and desires for self-fulfillment that define our lives.
Red Menace by
A suspenseful and heartfelt story about an era whose uncertainties, controversies, and dangers will seem anything but distant to contemporary readers. If thirteen-year-old Marty Rafner had his way, he'd spend the summer of 1953 warming the bench for his baseball team, listening to Yankees games on the radio, and avoiding preparations for his bar mitzvah. Instead, he has to deal with FBI agents staking out his house because his parents--professors at the local college--are suspected communist sympathizers. Marty knows what happens to communists, or Reds, as his friends call them: They lose their jobs, get deported...or worse. Two people he's actually met, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, have been convicted of being communist spies, and they're slated to be executed in two months. Marty just wants everything to go back to normal, but that's impossible thanks to the rumors that his parents are traitors. As his friends and teammates turn on him and federal agents track his every move, Marty isn't sure what to believe. Is his family really part of a Red Menace working against the United States? And even if they're simply patriotic Americans who refuse to be bullied by the government, what will it cost them? As the countdown to the Rosenbergs' execution date continues, it may be up to Marty to make sure his family survives.
Viet Thanh Nguyen's author homepage
A discussion with Pulitzer Price-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen
"Department’s 2019 Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month Keynote Event. On May 17th, the Asian American Foreign Affairs Association (AAFAA) and South Asian American Employee Association (SAAEA) hosted Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen for the Department’s keynote event for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Deputy Secretary John Sullivan delivered welcome remarks and AAFAA President Matthew Asada moderated the conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen. The event was held in the Burns Auditorium at the U.S. Department of State."