Set as the flashback in a coerced confession of a political prisoner, the book tells the story of the fall of the South Vietnamese government in 1975, and subsequent events in American exile in Los Angeles, through the eyes of a half-Vietnamese undercover communist agent. A Vietnamese reviewer noted that finally Americans have a chance to gain a new perspective on the war, one that is in contrast to the one provided by Hollywood myth makers.
The Sympathizer
Product Info
Hardcover: 371 pages
Publisher: Grove Press (7 April 2015)
Language: English
Genre: Historical drama
Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.4 x 9.1 inchesEditors' Review
The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, compared by critics to the works of Graham Greene, Denis Johnson, and George Orwell, The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity, politics, and America, wrought in electric prose. The narrator, a Vietnamese army captain, is a man of divided loyalties, a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist sleeper agent in America after the end of the Vietnam War. A powerful story of love and friendship, and a gripping espionage novel, The Sympathizer examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.
Author
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Viet Thanh Nguyen is a Vietnamese American Pulitzer Prize winning novelist. He is an Associate Professor of English, and of American Studies and Ethnicity, at the University of Southern California.
Winning Awards
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2016)
California Book Award Gold Medal for First Fiction (2015)
Edgar Award for Best First Novel (2016)
The Center For Fiction First Novel Prize Nominee for Longlist (2015)
Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction (2016)
