Carolyn Kellogg/LA Times
Viet Thanh Nguyen took the Pulitzer Prize in fiction Monday for his debut novel, “The Sympathizer,” published by Grove Press. Nguyen, a professor at the USC, is one of the L.A. Times’ 10 critics at large.
The Pulitzer committee lauded “The Sympathizer” as “a layered immigrant tale told in the wry, confessional voice of a ‘man of two minds’ — and two countries, Vietnam and the United States.”
Author Viet Thanh Nguyen wins Pulitzer Prize for fiction. (Photo: http://vietnguyen.info/)
Nguyen, who lives in Los Angeles, was born in Vietnam; his family came to the U.S. as refugees in 1975. “The Sympathizer,” which follows a wickedly smart double-agent for South Vietnam, begins at the end of the Vietnam War, moves to Southern California and eventually winds up on a film set not unlike “Apocalypse Now.” Part thriller, part political satire, “The Sympathizer” is sharp-edged fiction.
Nguyen explained, “The book is confession from one Vietnamese person to another – it was always designed to be addressed to Vietnamese people – anyone else who’s reading they are not the intended audience, at least not in the novel. I thought I was writing the book for myself, but to reach a larger audience it would have to speak to multiple audiences – from the feedback I’ve received, they’ve responded very positively to the book too.”
Nguyen’s latest book is the nonfiction study “Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War,” published earlier this month by Harvard University Press. He is at work on a sequel to “The Sympathizer.”
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