Robin
asked
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
I'm still working my way through The Sympathizer and I'm enjoying it thoroughly, but it's the message that the book is conveying (or that I think it is) which is really hitting home. My question is; did you write this knowing that societies issues of representation and acceptance are such important talking points at the moment? Was this your way of using past events to illustrate current struggles? Or am I way off?
Viet Thanh Nguyen
thanks for the question, Robin. I'm a scholar, and issues of representation and acceptance are critical in my work. Things haven't changed that much from the 1960s and 1970s when it comes to how "differences" and minorities, or others, are represented or accepted (or not) by dominant society. So I could write about the past and be aware that those events could comment on the present.
More Answered Questions
Margarita
asked
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
The Refugees is a stunning collection of stories. Thank you! Question: The family in the first story has been visited by a ghost. How do ghosts figure in Vietnamese American culture? I am Hispanic and was once told by my grandmother that if I was ever visited by a dead relative, that I shouldn't be scared, and I believe I was visited once by my grandmother shortly after her death. That story really resonated.
Jimmy
asked
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Mr. Nguyen, I taught English as a second language to ARVN soldiers. I now wonder about what they went through after the collapse of Saigon. Do you know of any nonfiction books that make an accounting of what re-education camps were like, how many people were executed or imprisoned, and what the citizens of South Vietnam faced when the North took over?
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