Paul Beatty In Conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen

In fall 2017, the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute hosted Beatty and Nguyen for an onstage conversation for Believer Magazine. A double agent and a sellout. A French Vietnamese man concealed to nearly everyone around him, and a black American who is a stranger in his own hometown. These are the narrators of The […]
BookCon 2018: Viet Thanh Nguyen: The Work of Empathy

Hannah Kushnick of Publisher’s Weekly features The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives for BookCon 2018. The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, a startling anthology of essays by various authors, was the brainchild of Abrams executive editor Jamison Stoltz. He was, according to the anthology’s editor, Viet Thanh Nguyen, “moved by the protests against the […]
“The Ark” Short Film

“The Ark,” is a short film written by Viet Thanh Nguyen. It picks up after his celebrated novel “The Sympathizer,” continuing a complex and deeply intimate tale of war, displacement, and survival. It can also be seen on the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center website. Credits: Director and Artist – Matt Huynh Writer and Narrator […]
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees and Jim Shepard’s The World to Come, reviewed: History in the making

Steven W. Beattie reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees. Originally published on The Globe and Mail. *** Fiction and history share a symbiotic relationship. Though the latter provides the raw material for the former, it is often fiction that has the stronger claim on truth, if “truth” is to be understood as emotional or affective, […]
In Viet Thanh Nguyen’s ‘The Refugees,’ wistfulness is an anthem of displacement

Karen Long reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees. Originally published by The Los Angeles Times. In a short time, Viet Thanh Nguyen has encircled the American literary consciousness: first with his mind-bending 2015 novel “The Sympathizer,” then last year’s cultural history “Nothing Ever Dies” and now with eight short stories entitled “The Refugees.” Nguyen, the […]
The Immigrant’s Fate Is Everyone’s

The following article was originally published in the July 11, 2016 issue of TIME. I am an immigrant. I am also a human being, an American, a Vietnamese, an Asian and a refugee. I do not have to choose among these identities, despite those who would insist that I do. On one end of the spectrum, […]