Upcoming Events at Benaroya Hall
Mon May 7, 7:30 PM - Mon May 7, 9:30 PM
200 University St, Seattle, WA 98101
Community: Downtown Seattle
Description
This is a lecture by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Viet Thanh Nguyen's novel The Sympathizer is a New York Times best seller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016, for what the Pulitzer Prize Citation observed as "a layered immigrant tale told in the wry,
Event Details
This is a lecture by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer is a New York Times best seller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016, for what the Pulitzer Prize Citation observed as “a layered immigrant tale told in the wry, confessional voice of a ‘man of two minds’—and two countries, Vietnam and the United States.”
His second book, the short story collection The Refugees, gives voice to characters between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will, the stories are a testament to the hardships and hopes of immigration.
Nguyen was born in Buon Me Thuot, Vietnam, and came to the United States as a refugee in 1975 with his family and was initially settled in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, one of four such camps for Vietnamese refugees. From there, his family moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and eventually settled in San José, California, opening one of the first Vietnamese grocery stores in the city. After high school, he briefly attended UC Riverside and UCLA before settling on UC Berkeley, where he graduated with degrees in English and Ethnic Studies. He stayed at Berkeley for a Ph.D. in English, moved to Los Angeles for a teaching position at the University of Southern California, and has been there ever since. He is currently the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer is a New York Times best seller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016, for what the Pulitzer Prize Citation observed as “a layered immigrant tale told in the wry, confessional voice of a ‘man of two minds’—and two countries, Vietnam and the United States.”
His second book, the short story collection The Refugees, gives voice to characters between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will, the stories are a testament to the hardships and hopes of immigration.
Nguyen was born in Buon Me Thuot, Vietnam, and came to the United States as a refugee in 1975 with his family and was initially settled in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, one of four such camps for Vietnamese refugees. From there, his family moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and eventually settled in San José, California, opening one of the first Vietnamese grocery stores in the city. After high school, he briefly attended UC Riverside and UCLA before settling on UC Berkeley, where he graduated with degrees in English and Ethnic Studies. He stayed at Berkeley for a Ph.D. in English, moved to Los Angeles for a teaching position at the University of Southern California, and has been there ever since. He is currently the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.
