
To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other

The Cleaving

Simone
From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen and illustrator Minnie Phan comes an unforgettable story of a Vietnamese American girl whose life is transformed by a wildfire.
Kirkus Reviews says “Stunning…. a powerful, multilayered depiction of an increasingly common situation.”

A Man of Two Faces
With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life in a highly original, blistering, and unconventional memoir.
He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America.

The Committed

Chicken of the Sea

The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives

The Refugees
The Refugees is a collection of perfectly formed stories written over a period of twenty years, exploring questions of immigration, identity, love, and family.
Kirkus Reviews says “many of the stories might have been written by a modern Flaubert, if that master had spent time in San Jose or Ho Chi Minh City.”
GZERO | 50 years after the Vietnam War
On GZERO World with Ian Bremmer speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen and historian Mai Elliott—two authors whose lives were shaped by the Vietnam War—to understand how one

Time Magazine | How America Became Afraid of the Other
The United States has always had a tricky relationship with immigrants and refugees, even if part of the American mythology is that we are a

Scott Simon’s Open Book | Viet Thanh Nguyen Joins Us for To Save and To Destroy
Scott Simon’s Open Book | Viet Thanh Nguyen Joins Us for To Save and To Destroy

Chicago Review of Books | Otherness Fuels Solidarity in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s “To Save and To Destroy”
Viet Thanh Nguyen is best known for his Pulitzer-winning 2015 debut novel The Sympathizer, whose protagonist is a half-French, half-Vietnamese spy for North Vietnam serving in

BBC | Iran and US Agree to Follow Up Talks
Watch the Full Video Here Rebecca Kesby: It is 5:06 GMT. Hello, this is Weekend Live from the BBC World Service with me, Rebecca Kesby

Zeteo | Trump and the Reality of Betrayal
Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen reflects on Trump’s devastating anti-immigrant policies, his treatment of allies, and the destructive history that led to this moment.
Viet’s Books

About Viet Thanh Nguyen
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and numerous other awards. His most recent publication is his memoir, A Man of Two Faces. His other books are the sequel to The Sympathizer, The Committed; a short story collection, The Refugees; Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction); and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. He has also published Chicken of the Sea, a children’s book written in collaboration with his son, Ellison. He is a University Professor, the Aerol Arnold Chair of English, and a Professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity, and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, he is also the editor of The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives.