In Trump’s vision of a white America, immigrants should be grateful and servile
What “go back” really means. Viet Thanh Nguyen writes about the impact of Trump’s “MAGA” slogan on immigrants, refugees, and people of color through the Washington Post. When Donald Trump first proclaimed “Make America Great Again,” many white Americans focused on the slogan’s explicit appeal. Why wouldn’t we want America to be great again? But […]
In Trump’s vision of a white America, immigrants should be grateful and servile
Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses the meaning and effects of Trump’s recent comments about immigrants in this op-ed for The Washington Post. When Donald Trump first proclaimed “Make America Great Again,” many white Americans focused on the slogan’s explicit appeal. Why wouldn’t we want America to be great again? But many of us who do not […]
These 14 Short Story Collections Will Change Your Approach to Life
Hadley Mendelsohn of My Domaine includes Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees on the list of “14 Short Story Collections That Will Change Your Approach to Life.” If you’re someone who loves reading but can never seem to find the time for it, we’ve found a solution: the humble short story. We get it, it can be intimidating to crack open a […]
Viet Thanh Nguyen Says The U.S. Could ‘Lose Its Soul’ With Migrant Family Separations
Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses the Trump administration’s zero tolerance immigration policy on NPR with host Scott Simon. Interview audio found here. Read the transcript below: SCOTT SIMON, HOST: The Trump administration’s zero tolerance immigration policy has become one of its most controversial. The Federal Government has separated hundreds of children from their parents as they increase […]
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 […]
Viet Thanh Nguyen humanizes in ‘The Refugees’
Daily Arts Writer Samantha Lu reviews ‘The Refugees’. Originally published in Michigan Daily. It takes a certain type of genius to write endings the way Viet Thanh Nguyen does: with candor, poetic grace and a haunting emotional spark that sticks. In his newest collection of short stories, “The Refugees,” Nguyen’s endings don’t merely slap on some […]
Writer Viet Thanh Nguyen reads from Pulitzer novel and tells refugee stories in Salt Lake City
Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses The Refugees and The Sympathizer with Ellen Fagg Weist in Salt Lake City. Pulitzer Prize winner’s fictions tell of the reality of being people of “two minds.” Viet Thanh Nguyen knows not many English professors find themselves chatting up Seth Meyers, as he did last month, clarifying the distinction between refugees […]
The latest short stories are far from sweet
Tom Fleming reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s ‘The Refugees’ and Ottessa Moshfegh’s collection of short stories. Originally published in The Spectator. Collections from Viet Thanh Nguyen and Ottessa Moshfegh are largely concerned with drug-addiction, vitiligo and dementia. Like his Pulitzer Prize-winning first novel, The Sympathisers, the stories in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees are set largely among the Vietnamese […]
Literary Review: Short Cuts – Viet Thanh Nguyen, April Ayers Lawson, Roxane Gay, Ottessa Moshfegh
Jude Cook reviews short stories by Viet Thanh Nguyen, April Ayers Lawson, Roxane Gay, and Ottessa Moshfegh. Originally published by The Literary Review. It might be premature to herald another renaissance of the American short story, but after books such as last year’s Prodigals by Greg Jackson and Scary Old Sex by Arlene Heyman, and the appearance of these […]
What Comes After the Trauma of Fleeing: ‘The Refugees’ by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Jasmine Lee Ehrhardt reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s ‘The Refugees’. Originally published by ZYZZYVA, a San Francisco Journal of Arts and Letters. The Refugees (224 pages; Grove), the new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen, consists of eight stories circling around the displacement caused by the Vietnam War. Though reviewers of the collection have tied the […]
Vietnam War revisited by author Viet Thanh Nguyen
Peter Pierce reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, The Sympathizer, and The Refugees for The Weekend Australian. Last year, not long after the publication of his Pulitzer prize-winning novel The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen released a nonfiction analysis, impassioned yet forensic, of ‘‘Vietnam and the memory of war’’. This book […]
Review: “Nothing Ever Dies” By Viet Thanh Nguyen
Bill Schwab reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s “Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War”. Originally published by The Missourian. “All wars are fought twice,” writes Viet Thanh Nguyen. “The first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.” Born in Vietnam in 1971 and raised in San Jose, Nguyen began testing this hypothesis […]
