KCRW | ‘The Sympathizer’ author Viet Thanh Nguyen on new memoir ‘A Man of Two Faces’
Andrea Brody interviews Viet Thanh Nguyen on his Pulitzer Prize-Winning novel, The Sympathizer— now being adapted into an HBO series, and his new memoir for KCRW One of the most-watched shows on HBO currently is the spy thriller The Sympathizer, the story of a young Vietnamese spy who flees to the US as a refugee in […]
Sydney Writer’s Festival | Viet Thanh Nguyen: A Man of Two Faces
“I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces”, begins Viet Thanh Nguyen’s debut novel, The Sympathizer, the internationally acclaimed bestseller that was recently adapted into an HBO series starring Sandra Oh and Robert Downey Jr. This duality is also at the heart of Viet’s highly original memoir, A Man of Two Faces, […]
ABC RN | A Man of Two Faces
We last spoke with Professor Viet Thanh Nguyen nine years ago about his debut novel The Sympathizer, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. His new memoir covers his family’s journey from Vietnam in the 1970’s fleeing war, to life as a refugee in America. The memoir is called A Man of […]
RNZ | Viet Thanh Nguyen on being Vietnamese and American
As a child watching the film Apocalypse Now, writer Viet Thanh Nguyen felt split in two – was he one of the Americans doing the killing or one of the Vietnamese being killed? “That moment really brought home to me this idea that stories don’t only have the power to save us but that stories have the […]
The Spectator | Viet Thanh Nguyen: A Man of Two Faces
In this week’s Book Club podcast my guest is the Pulitzer prize winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, whose new book is the memoir A Man of Two Faces. He tells me about the value of trauma to literature, learning about his history through Hollywood, falling asleep in class… and the rotten manners of Oliver Stone for The […]
BBC Radio 4 Start of the Week | “Crossing Borders and Belonging” with Viet Thanh Nguyen
Viet Thanh Nguyen, Helena Lee, and Jessica J. Lee join in conversation for BBC’s Radio 4 Start of the Week. The Vietnamese American writer Viet Thanh Nguyen was awarded the Pulitzer prize for his debut novel The Sympathizer in 2016. Now he turns his attention to memoir, in A Man of Two Faces. He was […]
RTE Radio | Interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen – A Man of Two Faces
Vietnamese-American novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen spoke to Sean O’Rourke about his memoir ‘A Man of Two Faces‘ for RTE Radio Listen to interview here Read below for transcript Sean: Nguyen was born in what was previously known as South Vietnam in 1971. Four years later, after the fall of Saigon, his family was forced to […]
The Review of Democracy Podcast | To Do Art, Politics, Critique, and Theory at the Same Time
In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Viet Thanh Nguyen – author of the new book A Man of Two Faces. A Memoir, A History, A Memorial – reflects on the ambiguities and contradictions of growing up Vietnamese-American in the aftermath of what is called the Vietnam War in the US; explains what motivated him to seek a […]
The American Philosophical Association (APA) Fall 2023, Volume 23, Number 1| “Memory, Identity, Representation : A Conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author of The Sympathizer”
The modern age, Edward W. Said poignantly observes, is largely the age of the refugee, an era of displaced people from mass immigration. Writing about what it means to be a refugee, he admits, is, however, deceptively hard. Because the anguish of existing in a permanent state of homelessness is a predicament that most people […]
NPR| Books We Love 2023
A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, a History, a Memorial Book critic, Thuy Dinh, adds A Man of Two Faces to NPR’s 2023 list of ‘Books We Love’ Viet Thanh Nguyen Combining elements of stand-up comedy and slam poetry, the author of The Sympathizer and The Refugees tells a story that aligns his personal trajectory of moving to […]
Weber State University | A Conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen—”On Memory & Media, Memoirs & Mentoring
Michael Wutz has a conversation with author, Viet Thanh Nguyen for Weber State University—read below for the transcription of the interview. Writing as power; writing as memory and representation; writing as a medium within an increasingly complex media ecology; and writing as a, still, formidable instrument to inform and to help shape public opinion—these are […]
Audible | The 18 Best Bios & Memoirs of 2023
“In turns heartrending and quick-witted, these candid listens are exemplars of the genre”. With the arrival of each new year comes a fresh array of bios and memoirs, each holding a uniquely intimate take on what it means to be human. These 18 listens represent just a few of the very best released in 2023—living, […]
Best Memoirs of 2023 | Oprah Daily
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read,” wrote the late, great, and infinitely quotable James Baldwin. In these six memoirs, writers lay bare their own stories—and may even help you make sense of yours. Some of their experiences are almost universally relatable, like […]
Poured Over Podcast | Viet Thanh Nguyen on A MAN OF TWO FACES
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s new memoir, A Man of Two Faces, is an unconventional and impeccable personal narrative that tackles the author’s own life alongside larger themes of culture and colonization. Nguyen joined us live at The Grove to talk about understanding his own story through writing, his interpretations of memory and more with Miwa Messer, […]
San Jose Mercury News | San José-reared author Viet Thanh Nguyen honors his late mother’s ‘epic’ life in his new memoir
Since winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2016, San Jose-reared novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen has become one of the leading voices of the Vietnamese diaspora in the United States. But he didn’t think his own story — about fleeing Vietnam when he was 4 and growing up in Silicon Valley in the 1980s — was compelling […]
