An Evening with Viet Thanh Nguyen: The Committed
The long-awaited follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sympathizer, which has sold more than one million copies worldwide.
About this event
The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is pleased to welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen for an in-person conversation and book signing on his new novel, The Committed. Nguyen will be in conversation with Dickinson College Professor, Sheela Jane Menon. During the event, Nguyen will read an excerpt of his forthcoming memoir, which features Harrisburg.
This is an in-person event with a live-stream option via Zoom. Registration is required. Doors will open at 6:15pm, and the event will begin at 7:00pm. Virtual attendees will receive the event access link 24 hours and 1 hour before the event begins.
Vaccination Requirements:
You must show proof that you are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 for entrance to this event. We will accept either a physical vaccination card, digital card, or a photo of the card on your phone. Per the CDC, people are considered fully vaccinated 2 weeks after their second dose in a 2-dose series, or 2 weeks after a single-dose vaccine.
Event Policies:
Seating is general admission; first come, first served
Masks are required
Book browsing will not be permitted after 8pm
About the Book:
The long-awaited follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning The 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.
About the Author:
Viet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam and raised in America. He is the author of The Committed, which continues the story of The Sympathizer, awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, alongside seven other prizes. He is also the author of the short story collection The Refugees; the nonfiction book Nothing Ever Dies, a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; the children’s book Chicken of the Sea, with his son Ellison and with Thi Bui and Hien Bui-Stafford; and is the editor of an anthology of refugee writing, The Displaced. He is a University Professor and the Aerol Arnold Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations. He lives in Los Angeles.
Sheela Jane Menon is Assistant Professor of English at Dickinson College. Her research centers on questions of race and identity in Malaysian literature and culture, and is informed by her upbringing in Malaysia, Singapore, and Honolulu. Her current book project analyzes a new cultural archive from Malaysia consisting of Indigenous (Orang Asal) oral histories, alongside novels, films, and public performances by Malay, Chinese, and Indian artists. Her work has been published in ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, The Diplomat, The Conversation, and New Mandala. In the classroom, Sheela Jane teaches Asian American, postcolonial, and world literature. She was appointed to the Pennsylvania Governor’s Advisory Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs in December 2019.
