Mar 29 2023
The Sympathizer Makes Mid-Year Best Novel Lists
The Sympathizer has critics everywhere buzzing. A highly praised cerebral thriller, Viet’s debut novel has made it on several mid-year best novel lists. See the full list below:
– 23 Books We’ve Loved So Far This Year, Washington Post, July 2, 2015
– Flavorwire’s 15 Best Fiction Books of 2015 So Far
– Amazon Editors’ Top 20 Picks for the Best Books of the Year So Far, 2015 (#5)
– Amazon.com Best Book of the Year So Far 2015, Literature and Fiction List (#8)
– Amazon.com Best Book of the Year So Far 2015, Mystery and Thriller List (#10)
– Public Picks of 2015 (most notable fiction of the year), Public Books
Category: News
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8 Comments
Viet,
Congratulations for winning THE prize. I am a Vietnam vet 1970/1972.I would like to read realistic books about Vietnam from 1972 to 2016. Can you suggest anything.
I agree with your thinking on the US military idustrial complex.
thanks, Marc. You can read: Le Ly Hayslip’s memoirs, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places and Child of War, Woman of Peace; Bao Ninh’s novel, The Sorrow of War; Duong Thu Huong’s novels, Novel Without a Name and Memories of a Pure Spring; Truong Nhu Tang’s A Vietcong Memoir. Just to start.
Has there been any reaction to your novel from within Vietnam? Is it, or will it be, available there?
I just received a contract from a Vietnamese publishing house for a translation. Whether that translation will pass the censorship bureau is another matter. I won’t have an abridged version published. So far the reception has been positive among Vietnamese readers who can read it in English.
Hey Viet! Read your book and loved it but question some research. Sinatra sang Bang Bang but Sonny Bono wrote it and his wife Cher, first recorded it. Was a really big hit for them. 3 million plus. im from that era and don’t even remember the Nancy Sinatra version.
Hi Dan, thanks for the comment. Funny, I never heard of the Cher version until someone pointed it out to me soon after the novel came out. The Sinatra version came out the same year, 1966. I actually do not remember when I first heard the Sinatra version, or the Vietnamese cover mentioned in this wiki link. I’m pretty sure I heard the Sinatra version before its use in the Kill Bill soundtrack mentioned in the wiki. In the end, I don’t know what version was popular in Vietnam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang_Bang_(My_Baby_Shot_Me_Down)
and a correction will be made in the paperback to mention Cher
Congratulations on the success of The Sympathized.