Pulitzer winner’s latest book underscores emotional challenges for refugees
Julia Oller interviews Viet Thanh Nguyen for the Columbus Dispatch. Forced to flee from Vietnam at the tender age of 4, Viet Thanh Nguyen was left with a sense of loneliness and want. The experience is one that the Pulitzer Prize-winning author shares in his latest book, “The Refugees,” along with the stories of seven fictional […]
Killing the Messenger: A Dual Interview with Charles Baxter and Viet Thanh Nguyen on the Importance and the Stigma of Didactic (APIA) Fiction
Jackson Bliss conducts a dual interview with authors Charles Baxter and Viet Thanh Nguyen for Ploughshares. Inside the craft-obsessed, time-warped fiction workshop where literary realism has reigned supreme forever, the Show-Don’t-Tell maxim serves an important function in critique: it warns writers from taking shortcuts in their own drafts and encourages them to “do the (technical) work” […]
Viet Thanh Nguyen The Refugees
Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses The Refugees with Michael Cathcart in this interview for ABC Melbourne Radio National. The writer Viet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam as that war was coming to an end, and raised in the USA. He teaches English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and lives in Los […]
Bonnie Boswell Reports – Viet Thanh Nguyen
In this interview with Bonnie Boswell for PBS SoCal, Viet Thanh Nguyen describes The Sympathizer and the art of story telling. Here are the transcriptions of the interview: Part 1: Bonnie Boswell: Hello, I’m Bonnie Boswell. According to the latest census, there are nearly 20,000 Vietnamese-Americans living in Los Angeles. Many of the first came […]
This Is Hell! On the Limitations of Memory and the Persistence of War
Chuck Mertz, host of This is Hell! podcast, talks with Viet Thanh Nguyen about his book Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War. Listen to the interview through the SoundCloud player or read the transcript below. Writer Viet Thanh Nguyen explores the ways war wins itself in the minds of the American public – […]
‘The Sympathizer’: Vietnamese Spy Encounters America
Tony Dushane interviews author Viet Thanh Nguyen for SF Gate. “The Sympathizer” recounts life after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Written by Viet Thanh Nguyen, the novel is a confession written by an unnamed narrator who comes to America as a sleeper agent for the communists after the war. In the U.S., the narrator, […]
Washington Post Book Club Interview with Book World Editor Ron Charles
Author Viet Thanh Nguyen talks about his debut novel, “The Sympathizer” with Book World editor Ron Charles in a special video interview for The Washington Post Book Club. The Washington Post Book Club is discussing “The Sympathizer” for its fiction pick for May, a gripping novel that captures the aftermath of Vietnam by Viet Thanh […]
Viet Thanh Nguyen Offers No Sympathy in Debut Novel
Mike Doherty of National Post talks with Viet Thanh Nguyen about his debut novel, The Sympathizer. Watch the accompanying video interview here. Viet Thanh Nguyen’s debut novel, The Sympathizer, aims to do what no other Vietnam War book or movie has done before. American artists, he says, address the Vietnamese through their self-absorbed perception; Vietnamese […]
‘The Sympathizer:’ A Very Different Look at the Vietnam War
Viet Thanh Nguyen talks with Keri Miller about his novel The Sympathizer on MPR News. You can listen to the full interview here. Whenever Viet Thanh Nguyen introduces his debut novel, he says it “begins with the fall — or the liberation — of Saigon, depending on your point of view.” April 30 marked the 40th […]
Pulitzer Prize Winner Viet Thahn Nguyen Discusses Debut Novel “The Sympathizer”
Viet Thanh Nguyen is interviewed by Kojo Nnamdi, host of the Kojo Nnamdi Show. Listen to the full interview here or read the transcript below. Forty years after the fall of Saigon, the Vietnam War still looms large in our culture. Writers have offered takes on the conflict ranging from the historic to the satiric […]
40 Years After Fall of Saigon, Vietnamese-American Writers Discuss War, Emigration
Viet Thanh Nguyen speaks with other Vietnamese-American writers on KQED’s Forum, hosted by Michael Krasny. Listen to the full interview here or read the transcript below. Forty years ago Thursday, Communist forces captured Saigon, marking the end of the Vietnam War and triggering a mass migration of Vietnamese to California and other parts of the […]
KPFK: Remembering Vietnam in Fiction and in Fact
Viet Nguyen speaks with Jon Weiner, host of the KPFK radio show 4 O’Clock Wednesdays, on his novel The Sympathizer. Listen to the free podcast on iTunes here. Or read the full transcript below. Transcript coming soon.
Viet’s Interview on Vietnamese Art
In the most recent issue of Arts Illustrated, Viet Thanh Nguyen was interviewed to discuss his personal journey as a writer, his work on identity and the arts, the Vietnam War, DiaCRITICS, and much more. This article was originally published in Arts Illustrated, volume 1, issue no. 2, pages 75 – 80 (August – September 2013). For best visual […]
“Troubled Ocean: Filmmakers Imagine the Pacific”
Viet Thanh Nguyen, in conversation with John Sayles and Vilsoni Hereniko, discuss Sayles’ and Hereniko’s films about the Vietnam War. Here is the transcript: Viet Nguyen: John is going to read an excerpt from his novel A Moment in the Sun, which for those of you who have not read it or not seen […]
Saigon in the Springtime: Examining the ‘historical memory’ of the Vietnam War
Viet Thanh Nguyen is interviewed by Katherine Yungmee Kim for the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences Magazine. This interview was originally published in the Fall/September 2004 issue. “If we look at Asian American history,” Viet Nguyen says, “it’s very difficult to isolate the ‘national’ from the ‘international.’ What the U.S. was doing in Asia, […]
