The Refugees: Stories of Anger, Humour and Hope
Set in Vietnam and among the Vietnamese communities of California, this accomplished collection from Pulitzer-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen sees characters face up to the ghosts of the past. This review by Yiyun Lee was originally published by The Guardian. About 15 years ago, I taught A Problem from Hell, Samantha Power’s book on genocides, to […]
Shelf Awareness: The Refugees
Jen Forbus reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s short story collection, The Refugees, for Shelf Awareness. Following his Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel, The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen shares eight short stories in The Refugees. Each entry in the collection examines a snapshot in the life of an individual straddling two disparate spheres–their homeland and their adopted country. […]
Wars do not die
Joanna Kapica-Curzytek reviews The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Originally published by Esensja. Wyróżniony w tym roku Nagrodą Pulitzera „Sympatyk” jest rozliczeniem się z wojną w Wietnamie, jakiego prawdopodobnie w literaturze angielskojęzycznej jeszcze nie było. Główny bohater powieści to człowiek o dwóch duszach, dwóch twarzach i dwóch umysłach. Jest (nieślubnym) synem Europejczyka i Wietnamki, co […]
Bookeriada Review: Viet Thanh Nguyen, “The Sympathizer”
Katarzyna Figiel reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer. Originally published by Bookeriada. NASZYM ZDANIEM Nguyen w „Sympatyku” wrócił do najczarniejszych czasów dla Wietnamu: wojny w latach 70. i jej reperkusji. Narratorem wybrał pewnego kapitana południowowietnamskiej armii, który jest komunistycznym szpiegiem. Przedstawia on bieg zdarzeń z sarkazmem i tak bezpardonowym językiem, że nie sposób nie zaśmiać się pod nosem […]
Il Giornale Reviews The Sympathizer: “Vietnam is a whole other movie if a double spy tells it”
Daniele Abbiati reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer. Originally published by Il Giornale. A partire da quella fra comunismo e americanismo, per proseguire con quella fra Ho Chi Minh e Ngo Dinh Diem, tra imperialismo francese e imperialismo statunitense, tra professore e studente, tra il caldo secco di Los Angeles e il caldo umido di Saigon […]
Journal of International and Global Studies on Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War
The following is a review by Michael G. Vann, written on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Nothing Ever Dies for the Journal of International and Global Studies. In Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, Robert Duvall as Colonel Kilgore leads an assault on a sleepy coastal Vietnamese village. After an unforgettable helicopter attack set to Wagner’s “Flight of the […]
La Stampa Reviews The Sympathizer: “Viet Thanh Nguyen, how difficult it is to betray the friend in the name of communism”
Domenico Quirico reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer. Originally published by La Stampa. Un infiltrato vietcong negli Usa dopo la caduta di Saigon diviso tra la fedeltà all’ideologia e gli affetti personali. Per favore! Fate leggere questo romanzo, Il simpatizzante, vincitore del Pulitzer, a Salvini e ai suoi leghisti. Imponetelo come premessa elettorale a madame Le Pen, […]
A Satirical and Political Indictment of the Vietnam War
Gautam Bhatia reviews The Sympathizer for The Wire India. Nguyen understands that the sheer magnitude of the destruction from the war cannot be effectively captured through bleak realism, but rather, through a style that disavows its own seriousness. At one point in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, the narrator, recalling the fall of Saigon, falls […]
Memories of Vietnam in Memoriam
Micharl Orr reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s book Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War for Origins. How do people talk about wars they remember? Do they reference famous films or novels about the conflict? Do they recall images made by famous journalists, taken in moments of pain or horror? Do societies remember war, or […]
The Sympathizer: Different Perspectives of the Vietnam War
Sudarshan Purohit of the New Indian Express reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel, The Sympathizer. They say history is written by the victors. In the case of the Vietnam War, the country that beat a hasty retreat has gotten to tell its story over and over again in films. But other sides in the conflict—the ARVN […]
Story vs. History: Competing Ambitions in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s THE SYMPATHIZER
Matt Matros reviews The Sympathizer for Ploughshares at Emerson College. Like many Gen-Xers, I don’t know as much as I should about the Vietnam War. Sure I’ve heard stories—from an uncle who cleared land mines, from a middle school teacher ravaged by Agent Orange. But my own father lucked into a high lottery number, and […]
The Moderate Voice Reviews Nothing Ever Dies
Shaun Mullen of The Moderate Voice reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s book, Nothing Ever Dies. Every American generation, it seems, has its own war. My grandparents had the Great War, my parents had the Good War, and I had the Vietnam War, with the Forgotten War in between. My children had the Iraq War and, at […]
A Right Way to Remember?
Jonathan Mirsky reviews both Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War and Christopher Goscha’s The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam for the July 2016 issue of the Literary Review. In Nothing Ever Dies, his unusually thoughtful consideration of war, self- deception and forgiveness, Viet Thanh Nguyen penetrates deeply into memories of […]
To Understand the Vietnam Story, Read ‘The Sympathizer’, as the Pulitzer Prize Jury Did
Jai Arjun Singh reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer for Scroll.in. I am a man of two faces, and also a man of two minds, the narrator-protagonist of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer says in the novel’s opening paragraph. “I am not some misunderstood mutant from a comic book or a horror movie, although some […]
America Bound
Cab Tran reviews The Sympathizer for the Missoula Independent. The Vietnam War produced a staggering number of literary works. Go into any bookstore and you’ll likely find an entire section dedicated to biographies on Henry Kissinger and Robert McNamara, military histories and a slew of memoirs by former U.S. servicemen whose reluctant heroics are the […]
