Join Jenny Emery Davidson and Scott Burton from The Community Library as they discuss The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, the winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared to Graham Greene and Saul Bellow, The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a “man of two minds,” a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon. He, while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles, secretly reports back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.
“The Sympathizer is destined to become a classic and redefine the way we think about the Vietnam War and what it means to win and to lose.” —T. C. Boyle, author of T.C. Boyle Stories I and II.
Part of The Center’s BIG IDEA project This Land is Whose Land?
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s lecture is presented in partnership with The Community Library and has been generously supported by an anonymous gift and Marcia & Don Liebich.
