Viet Thanh Nguyen
Pulitzer Prize–Winning Writer
“I was a refugee once. I may no longer be a refugee now, but I still call myself one. Those of us who were once the unwanted must stand with those who are unwanted today, for we are living reminders that refugees are not inhuman. Instead, it is the conditions that create refugees which are inhuman and which threaten to dehumanize those who hate refugees. We should all welcome the chance to welcome refugees and fight on their behalf; this is the fight that makes us human and keeps us human.”
Biography
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer is a New York Times bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Other honors include the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction from the American Library Association, the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction, a Gold Medal in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and the Asian/Pacific American Literature Award from the Asian/Pacific American Librarian Association. His other books are The Refugees, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction), and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. He is also the Aerol Arnold Chair of English, and a Professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity, and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California.
He has been interviewed by Tavis Smiley, Seth Meyers, and Terry Gross, among many others. Most recently he has been the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, and le Prix du meilleur livre étranger (Best Foreign Book in France), for The Sympathizer. He is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and the editor of The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives. His most recent publication is Chicken of the Sea, a children’s book written in collaboration with his 6-year-old son, Ellison.
Photo Credits
Cara Robbins