Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

“As minhas memórias começam quando me tornei refugiado aos 4 anos”

Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses The Refugees with João Céu e Silva in this interview for Diario de Noticias.  O escritor Viet Thanh Nguyen nasceu no Vietname em 1971 e com a queda de Saigão em 1975 a família refugia-se nos EUA. Considera-se refugiado e é crítico da política anti-imigração de Trump. Uma entrevista exclusiva sobre o […]

No Place To Call Home

Kera Thinks interviews Viet Thanh Nguyen on World Refugee Day as they discuss refugees and his essay collection, The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives. When refugees leave their homes, they’re gambling that some place new will welcome them. Viet Thanh Nguyen knows that experience well as a refugee from Vietnam after the fall of […]

‘Call Me a Refugee, Not an Immigrant’: Viet Thanh Nguyen

Jon Wiener of The Nation interviews Viet Thanh Nguyen on refugee literature and the concept of “the genius.” You can listen to this episode of the “Start Making Sense” podcast here. The novelist on refugee literature and the concept of the “genius.” Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Sympathizer. He’s also the recipient of the MacArthur […]

Interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen for Literature Interpretation Theory (LIT)

This interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen was conducted by Ruby Perlmutter for LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory.  Published in 2015, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer tells the story of a communist spy sent to California after the so-called “Fall of Saigon” (April 30, 1975); his mission involves working as an informant within a newly formed Vietnamese refugee community in […]

IN CONVERSATION WITH VIET THANH NGUYEN: ON DIASPORA & CULTURE AS PLURALITY

Dao Strom discusses the founding of diaCRITICS and the Vietnamese culture with Viet Thanh Nguyen in this interview. This is a conversation interview conducted by Dao Strom, new editor of diaCRITICS, with Viet Thanh Nguyen, author, founder and publisher of diaCRITICS. IN CONVERSATION WITH VIET THANH NGUYEN:   DS: When did you start diaCRITICS? Can you tell us […]

Author Viet Thanh Nguyen on Writing About Refugees

In this interview for Aspen Words, Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses the challenges of writing The Refugees and the power of writing.  Aspen Words will confer the inaugural $35,000 Aspen Words Literary Prize this year, recognizing a work of fiction with social impact. Twenty nominees are still in the running, and the diverse list includes 12 novels and eight short […]

Forgetting and Remembering

In this interview for Jacobin Magazine, Yahya Chaudhry and Viet Nguyen discuss the self-serving stories the US state tells about the Vietnam War.  “I come here mindful of the past, mindful of our difficult history,” Barack Obama said during a May 2016 visit to Vietnam, “but focused on the future — the prosperity, security, and human dignity that […]

An Interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen

Michael LeMahieu and Angela Naimou interview Viet Thanh Nguyen about his novels for Contemporary Literature.  VIET THANH NGUYEN Conducted by Michael LeMahieu and Angela Naimou Viet Thanh Nguyen is on a roll. In 2015, he published his first novel, The Sympathizer (Grove); it won the Pulitzer Prize and France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger. In […]

The Secret to Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Overnight Success

Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer and The Refugees

In this phone interview for Electric Lit, Joe Fassler inquires about the decades of work it took to build up to Viet Thanh Nguyen’s recent success. The novelist seemed to go from unknown to MacArthur genius in two years. In truth, it took decades. This month, the novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen was awarded one of […]

Viet Thanh Nguyen: The Sympathizer

Viet Thanh Nguyen, 2017 MacArthur Fellow

Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses The Sympathizer and the Vietnam War in this interview with Robert Scheer of KCRW’s Scheer Intelligence. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author discusses his acclaimed novel and the legacy of the Vietnam War. USC professor Viet Thanh Nguyen won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Sympathizer and is a 2017 MacArthur Fellow. […]

How a Pulitzer-Prize Winning Novelist Thinks About Coffee, Screenplays and Facebook

In this interview for the Observer, Jimmy Soni asks Viet Thanh Nguyen about his writing process.  This past week, Viet Thanh Nguyen was announced as one of the winners of this year’s MacArthur “Genius” Grants. It is the latest honor in a career that has taken Nguyen from writing screenplay drafts to winning the Pulitzer Prize for […]

Viet Thanh Nguyen ‘humbled’ with the prestigious MacArthur

Viet Thanh Nguyen, 2017 MacArthur Fellow, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, September 23, 2017

Long Hoàng of VOA Tiếng Việt conducts an interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen, following his recipiency of the 2017 MacArthur Genius Grant. Tiểu thuyết gia người Mỹ gốc Việt, Nguyễn Thanh Việt, một lần nữa khiến mọi người chú ý với giải thưởng MacArthur Fellowship danh giá do Quỹ MacArthur, một tổ chức tư nhân phi […]

A refugee writer wins a ‘genius grant’ for his depictions of the displaced

Viet Thanh Nguyen, MacArthur fellow

Carol Hills and Marco Werman of Public Radio International interview Viet Thanh Nguyen as a recipient of a MacArthur grant. Vietnamese American writer Viet Thanh Nguyen describes himself as “numb and shocked” after winning a MacArthur “genius grant.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Sympathizer,” his debut novel, was cited by the MacArthur Foundation for “challenging popular depictions […]