Time features The Committed in their list of anticipated books.
Reasons to be excited about 2021 abound, and among them is a literary landscape packed with promise. Some of the most celebrated names in the industry will be releasing new work, from Jhumpa Lahiri and Kazuo Ishiguro to Haruki Murakami and Viet Thanh Nguyen. The new year also features a slate of new and rising voices like Morgan Jerkins, Ashley C. Ford and Zakiya Dalila Harris. These most anticipated fiction and nonfiction books of the year offer something for every reader: there is Bill Gates’ guide to achieving zero greenhouse gas emissions, George Saunders’ lessons on writing and Stacey Abrams’ gripping legal thriller. Here, the 21 most anticipated books of 2021.
The Committed, Viet Thanh Nguyen (March 2)
Following the spy from Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2015 novel The Sympathizer, The Committed takes the reader on a crime-filled intellectual journey. After ending his career as a Communist spy, the unnamed protagonist has made his way to Paris, where his zest for life is reinvigorated, even as he runs from his past. He and his brother turn to drug dealing, and soon find themselves in deeper trouble than they anticipated. As he works his way into an intriguing circle of intellectuals and politicians, the former spy finds himself motivated not only by capitalism but also by French philosophers like Sartre and de Beauvoir.
